NEW ORLEANS — We have been covering the deadly I-55 crash that killed seven people and injured more than 60.
Tonight, a survivor is telling his terrifying story exclusively, while families are trying to gather any of their belongings from the wrecked cars.
“I remember feeling, going to the right, and then falling, and then it was just water coming over us,” remembers Zack Barton, 35.
When he left his Lakeview home, for a hike in Mississippi, he never thought he'd be thankful that his pickup was hit so hard on Monday, that it flew over the I-55 rail and into the water.
“You know, when I was under the water, I was like, I felt like I was going to die, you know, but then after that, it was okay. I'm alive, you know, check myself out.”
Cut up from the shattered glass, his survival instinct kicked in. He and his friend Richard climbed out of the passenger door, but in the fog on the interstate above, he kept hearing hit, after hit, after hit and feared one of those cars would also fall off and crush them.
“I told Richard, like, ‘We got to get away. We got to get away.’ Like, ‘Get to shore. We got to get away,’” Barton recounted.
Today his little girl Caroline puts multiple BAND-AIDs on Bunny's torn-up feet. He was in Zack's truck too. And the reason he is thankful now that he went into the water, is this.
“From the pictures from where we went off, where we would have been if we hadn't gone off, it was nothing but burned cars,” Barton said.
“When you pick this car up, the metal was just stuck on the concrete,” said Aaron Campeaux, owner of Aaron Campeaux Towing.
Many of those burned cars are now in Kenner at Aaron Campeaux Towing. Aaron's story is different than Zack's, but just as traumatic.
“The smell. The tanker trucks. You got one side of the tanker trucks on fire. You got the other side of that is full with food, or something like that, and you have people in stretchers. And when one EMS would come, the other one would leave,” remembers Campeaux.
Aaron and two workers from his company moved cars from the interstate from 9 a.m. Monday to noon on Tuesday. They had no breaks or sleep.
“The people that you seen hurt, the people that was injured, it was just, it was terrible. I catch myself waking up in the middle of the night just thinking, ‘Are they OK?’”
There's been a steady stream of families coming to get belongings out of their damaged cars. A sister is helping her brother. He just had back surgery from his injuries. The tow company tells her to leave the child car seats for good. They may no longer protect her nephews. One man searched and searched for his ring in a burned-out car. It's gone. Instead, he found a rosary in perfect shape.
The Louisiana State Police came out to the tow yard to identify a lot of the cars, and they couldn't, because the VIN on the dashboard had been completely burned away. So, on one car, they had to flip it over, put a mirror underneath the chassis, and search until they found another copy of the VIN.
And just like Zack wanted to get back home to his wife and little girl for comfort after what he lived through, so did Aaron, with his 11-year-old son, Carson.
“I just really wanted him, to tell him I loved him, which I do every day, but I just felt in my heart that I know, if I hear his voice, I will be alright,” said Campeaux.
The state police are not allowing the wrecked, and burned cars, to be crushed, or taken from the tow yard yet, while the investigation is ongoing.
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