Toledo Rail Collision: Survivors describe visceral impact
Witnesses on Renfe and Iryo trains recount injuries and immediate escape efforts following the crash near Urda.
By Allison Rojas ·
Josimar Medina woke before 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday to find himself airborne inside a train carriage. He was traveling from Madrid to Seville on a state-operated Renfe service when the train struck the rear of a private Iryo train on the same line. Medina and his girlfriend, Vitoria Maia, were seated in the seventh carriage. Had they occupied seats further forward, they might have been among the dead.
The crash occurred in vineyards and olive groves near Urda, a small town in the Castilla-La Mancha region close to Toledo. Medina described seeing passengers with deep cuts, missing limbs, and heads crushed by the impact. One passenger had no body parts remaining below the chest. Medina, a Peruvian national, wore a light brown T-shirt stained with the blood of a young American man he helped move to safety.
Fredrich Barilea, who was traveling with his partner Arabella Barilea on the Iryo train, was thrown from his seat by the force of the collision. The couple, who live in Dubai, heard a passenger shout for everyone to exit the train because another service might strike the wreckage. Many evacuees had head injuries and were covered in blood. The Barileas moved away from the trains as quickly as they could.
Emergency services from Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid responded within hours. Cars, vans, and trucks crowded the streets of Urda. Local authorities converted a sports center into a triage area for walking wounded. Buses later transported lightly injured survivors to the town, though the Barileas said they were too confused to know their exact location upon arrival.
Fredrich Barilea stated that the table beside them disappeared in the crash. He added that the event happened in a split second. He described the feeling as living a second life, expressing gratitude for their survival. Medina and Maia also noted the luck involved in their positioning within the carriage.
The accident involved a Renfe train colliding with an Iryo train on the Madrid to Seville route. The impact site is located near Urda in central Spain. Rescue workers and Guardia Civil officers arrived at the scene to manage the emergency. Survivors described the immediate chaos and the visible severity of the injuries among fellow passengers.
