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'I was a Jane Doe': Amtrak train crash mom on surviving the commute from hell - New York Post
Jun 25, 2022 1 min, 23 secs

On a spring evening in 2015, Geralyn Ritter sprinted through Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station to catch her New York-bound train.

“I remember a flash of realization that we were tipping over, and I remember screaming,” Ritter, 57, of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, told The Post.

The infamous Amtrak train crash on May 12, 2015, killed eight and injured more than 200 passengers.

That morning seven years ago, my life was normal,” Ritter told The Post.

The evening of the fateful crash, Ritter was seated in business class which occupied the first car on the train.

I realized we were —” Ritter said, trailing off.

My colon was under my armpit,” Ritter said.

“They told my family it was unlikely that I was going to make it,” Ritter said.

After a month — and multiple surgeries to repair her intestines, screw her pelvis back together and plate her broken ribs — Ritter was released from the hospital and went home in a wheelchair.

The lack of mobility and independence would be difficult for any recovering patient; for Ritter, who lived a fast-paced life where she’d hop off a flight home from China and rush home to the local baseball field to cheer on her boys, the life change was hell — both on her, and on her marriage.

“My husband had to transition from focusing on his career to being a full-time caregiver for me and our sons,” Ritter said.

We were just so grateful that I lived and I didn’t have a brain injury,” she said.

In 2017, Ritter was finally able to return to the office

“The journey back [was] a long one,” Ritter said

At some point, we all go through something,” Ritter said

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