PENTHEON STORIEs
EXTRICATION FROM A DERAILED PASSENGER TRAIN

WHAT
Derailed passenger train
circa 60 people injured
7 entrapped victims extricated
5 lives lost

WHERE
Burgrain
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Germany

WHO
Feuerwehr Garmisch & Feuerwehr Partenkirchen
Told by Michael Reim & Michael Sexl

THE SCENE
A STATE OF HIGH ALARM

On 3 June 2022, a double decker regional train traveling to Munich derailed north of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, near Burgrain in southern Germany. The crash involved five passenger carriages, some of which slid down the tracks and landed on their side. “We were very close by when the accident happened,” remembers Sexl. “A pure coincidence, since we were picking up a new vehicle for our fire department. When we were some 300 or 400 meters from the accident, we saw an enormous dust cloud. As we arrived at the scene seconds later, we saw two carriages that had landed on their side. One of them had been ripped open, revealing a tear of some six, seven meters long. Four people had fallen out of the train through this tear und were practicality buried under the carriage and trapped there.” 

Reim, who got the call in Garmisch that there had been an incident, was in a state of high alarm. “That is protocol with accidents involving a train. We were, to be honest, still quite calm. A train derailing could also mean that the train was just 20 centimeters off the rail.” It wasn’t until Reim arrived, that he understood the full extent of the accident. He continues: “I immediately saw that this wasn’t an ordinary derailment. When we looked from above at the crashed carriages which had slid down the embankment towards the main road, that’s when I thought ‘yes, this is something bigger, we need all the resources we have at our disposal’. Our fire brigade fortunately brought the newly purchased battery-powered Pentheon rescue set from Holmatro. Tools that proved paramount in providing us with the speed and flexibility needed to execute the operation.”

THE RESCUE OPERATION
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT

Sexl remembers the challenges they met when trying to access the victims under one of the carriages: “We couldn’t just walk down the aisle as on a normal train. We had to climb over practically everything. Debris, lots of parts and sharp-edged objects. This is where the Pentheon Series tools really proved themselves. If we had used hose tools, the rescue operation would have simply been impossible. The sharp edges everywhere would have definitely damaged the hoses, making it impossible to continue rescuing people.”

“It is very complicated to use hydraulic tools with hoses in such a confined space”, adds Reim, “but with Pentheon we experienced maximum freedom of movement and freedom of placement. We could easily enter the train with the tools or have someone pass a tool to someone else.” What proved of most value in this operation, according to Sexl, were the 30 degree cutting blades of the Pentheon Cutter: “Thanks to the inclined blades we were able to work really efficiently.” 

THE POWER OF PENTHEON
A REAL TEAM EFFORT

Looking back at the large scope of this rescue operation, Sexl vividly recalls how everyone worked together: “Police officers, the fire departments and all other rescue workers involved worked hand in hand to get the job done. We were able to get all entrapped victims out from under the carriages in under 40 minutes.” 

Five people lost their lives during the derailment. Five too many, but without the help of everyone involved, this number would have been much higher. “I think that, thanks to the Pentheon tools, we were able to get everyone out of the train relatively fast,” concludes Reim. “We arrived at the scene with just one battery per Pentheon tool, and we didn’t have to replace any batteries. Everything worked wonderfully.”