Gianforte holds press conference on Amtrak derailment

Gov. Greg Gianforte, along with local officials and first responders, all volunteers who came to the crash, held a press conference at Liberty Community and Senior Center this afternoon to address the Amtrak derailment Saturday that killed three.

Gianforte said at this time all passengers have been accounted for, and have left Chester.

He said all but five of those injured have been treated and released from the hospitals in Kalispell and Great Falls they were sent to. Those five that remain are in stable condition, he said.

Gianforte said his thoughts and prayers, as well as those of all Montanans, are with those affected by this derailment, and offered his thanks and praise to the volunteers and the larger Hi-Line community for their work over the last 24 hours.

He said first responders from five counties assisted with the situation, most of them working through the night with not a wink of sleep in order to get people the care they needed.

He said everyday community members in the area provided assistance however they could as well.

"This was an all-of-the-Hi-Line effort," he said, praising those present and not. “You made Montana proud.”

Gianforte said the cause of the derailment is still being investigated and said these kinds of investigations are typically completed within nine days or so, but he has no way of predicting anything beyond that.

However, he said, the state will coordinate with Amtrak and BNSF along with local officials to find out what happened and get the track operational as soon as practically possible.

The Empire Builder runs along tracks owned by BNSF Railway as it runs along the highway on its route between Chicago and Portland, Ore., and Seattle.

Hill County Disaster and Emergency Services Coordinator Amanda Frickel was among those present at the press conference.

Frickel said she only spent 20 minutes on the scene before she needed to get to work in the triage center, but those 20 minutes were hard, especially when she heard the word casualties getting thrown around.

She said it was difficult because people died from this, but it’s important to remember that more than140 people are still alive even after a derailment that threw many train cars off the track onto their sides.

She said she’s proud of her colleagues and the community and all that they did.

“Our community just helped 141 strangers ... they felt safe and they were OK,” Frickel said.

She said triage ran like a well-oiled machine with everyone working insanely hard and fast, but also carefully and efficiently.

Frickel said the help of local nurses who took vitals and made sure everyone’s health needs were met in this stressful time were especially crucial to the operation and performed admirably.

Watch for more in the Monday edition of the Havre Daily News.