Shaken after careering down a motorway embankment on to a railway line, a delivery driver dialled 999 with his mobile phone and told the operator his vehicle was stuck on the tracks. But before the man could finish his call, the operator heard him shout "There's a train coming."
There was then a bang and the switchboard lit up with calls for help. Residents from the tiny village of Great Heck, near Selby, North Yorkshire, were first on the scene of devastation in which 13 people were killed and more than 70 injured.
Villagers, who live just yards from the tracks, were woken by the noises of scraping iron and steel just after 6 a.m. They looked out of their windows to see the crumpled wreckage of two trains strewn across the railway tracks and fields near a bridge carrying the M62.
One carriage of the high-speed commuter train carrying passengers from Newcastle to London was completely flattened. Another was precariously balanced at a 45 degree angle on a freight train which was carrying coal. The remaining carriages stood upright by the side of the track. The Land Rover and trailer, which was being used to deliver a car from Lincolnshire to Manchester, was buried under wreckage.
Residents went outside to try to help and found passengers crawling out of the carriages. Ladders were used to help the walking wounded down from the carriages and windows were smashed to enable people to climb out.
Emergency services were quickly on the scene and directed those who could walk to a nearby barn, which was converted into a makeshift hospital.
Rescue workers used specialist tools to cut the remaining passengers free.