1 killed after train carrying US lawmakers hits garbage truck


A train carrying dozens of Republican U.S. lawmakers to a retreat in West Virginia collided with a garbage truck Wednesday. No lawmakers or aides were reported injured, but the White House said one person was killed and another was seriously injured.

Lawmakers said the fatality appeared to be someone who was in the truck. One lawmaker who was aboard the train, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said the vehicle had been ripped in half and said he saw a person wrapped in tarp and said emergency workers appeared to be "putting a body away."

Cole said he felt "a tremendous jolt" when the accident occurred at about 11:15 a.m. EST, nearly two hours after it left Washington headed to the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. The policy retreat, an annual event, is scheduled to last three days and feature speeches from President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Cole said the train stopped quickly after impact. He said several GOP lawmakers who are doctors got off the train to assist, including Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, who was also at last June's shooting of Republicans at a baseball practice in nearby Alexandria, Virginia, and treated some of the victims.

Cassidy later tweeted that there were three people on the truck and "one is dead."

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was on the train and was unhurt, aides said.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Donald Trump was briefed on the accident.

"There is one confirmed fatality and one serious injury," but no injuries to lawmakers or their staffs, she said.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected by this incident," Sanders said.

Vice President Mike Pence -- the keynote speaker at the three-day retreat west of the U.S. capital -- was to fly in later in the day, and was not on the train.

Republican members of the House of Representatives and the Senate left Washington earlier Wednesday bound for the historic Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, for their annual retreat.