Responder Details Disney Monorail Crash
A would-be hero spoke about the monorail crash and how he quickly realized he would be unable to save one life.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. --
A would-be hero spoke Monday night about the fatal crash of a Walt Disney World monorail and how he quickly realized he would be unable to save one life.
"We heard a pretty good crash," Sean Kupfer said.
Kupfer is used to responding to tragedies as an emergency medical technician in West Palm Beach, but while he was on vacation at Disney World on the Fourth of July he encountered another one.
The monorail crash happened practically right in front of him. Instinct kicked in, and Kupfer ran up to the track and saw the wreckage.
"You can see the protrusion, that monorail pink had come completely through the driver's compartment of monorail purple," Kupfer said.
Kupfer said he went to work.
"We tried to get a response out of him at first. We were banging on the window, banging on the door, 'Can you hear me?' Nothing, nothing from the driver," Kupfer said.
So with another witness helping, Kupfer said they managed to rip the door off the front car.
Kupfer said he frantically tried to get driver, Austin Wuennenberg, out of the mess of metal. But with no equipment, it wasn't possible. He said after looking inside the cabin he knew survival wasn't possible.
"Sorry to say it's a crushing injury," Kupfer said.
Kupfer and another paramedic turned their attention to six other shaken-up passengers who did not sit in the front cabin.
"It's going to be something burned into my mind every Fourth of July whether I'm at Disney or not. Every time I'm at Disney, it's certainly going to be hard," Kupfer said.
Even though the monorail system's back on track, Kupfer said it will take some time to get on board.
"I would definitely sit in the middle, but I think I'll be taking the ferry for a while," Kupfer said.
He said he knows as hard as the crash is on him it's even more devastating for Wuennenberg family.
"We tried. We tried to do the best we could," Kupfer said. "My heart and my thoughts and our prayers are with them."
Kupfer said just minutes before the crash he and his girlfriend had been sitting in the front cabin of a different monorail along with the driver.
If that was the case on the train involved in the crash he said he believes more lives would have been lost.
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