When the call came in around 11 p.m. on Tuesday night that a train had derailed and entered the Gunnison River, Mesa County Search and Rescue volunteer Nicholas Ingalls said he didn’t know what to expect.

“I don’t know if the words that I used can be put into print, but it certainly caught me off guard,” Ingalls said.

The initial call didn’t have much detail, but Ingalls said it gave first responders a good location for the locomotive and confirmed it involved a commercial train with two Union Pacific Rail employees on board. Ingalls said that helped the teams plan how to respond, which would be much different than a passenger train with many more potential casualties.

After getting authorization to deploy, Mesa County Search and Rescue — as well as the Grand Junction Fire Department —

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