Drivers in rural Missouri had a miraculous escape in the early hours of Saturday after a train crash caused an overpass to collapse in flames.
The accident in Rockview at about 2am was caused when two freight trains collided at an intersection, derailing the rail cars and sending them smashing into a support pillar for the highway overpass.
The collision of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific trains caused a fire as diesel fuel leaked from one of the train engines.
However, two train workers and five people who had been in two cars on the Highway M overpass in Rockview, escaped without serious injury.
Wayne Woods and his son heard the crash from their home and rushed outside to help.
'We heard a car's tires squealing like it was coming to a stop and then a crash and a horn continuously blowing,' he told KFVS.
Mr Woods, who moved to the area last year, added: 'They got the guys out and lifted them down off the train and got them off the overpass. One was kind of bloody and the other one looked like he was pretty shook up.'
Christopher M. Cantrell, 22, of Benton, had been driving towards the bridge as it collapsed. Unable to stop, he says his car was sent flying through the air, before crashing.
His 19-year-old wife Victoria, who broke her leg and ankle in the crash, and Sarah Ishmael, 19, who was also in the car, were supposed to be bridesmaids at a wedding today.
The women were taken to hospital and had to miss watching their friend get married.
According to a police report, Mr Cantrell received only slight injuries in the crash, which was recorded at 2.11am.
The driver of the other car, Larry J Moore, 30, and his passenger Angela R Donley, 38, who are both from Chaffee, received minor injuries.
Sheriff's dispatcher Clay Slipis said the collision happened about 15 miles southwest of Cape Girardeau.
'One train T-boned the other one and caused it to derail, and the derailed train hit a pillar which caused the overpass to collapse,' he said.
Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter told Southeastern Missourian that the 14-car Burlington Northern train had just gone through the intersection when it was hit by the Union Pacific train, pushing the train cars into a support post of the overpass.
The crash came just over a week after a commuter train derailed in Connecticut, injuring more than 70 people during the evening rush hour.
And, on Thursday a truck crash caused a bridge to collapse in Washington state, sending two cars into the Skagit River.
Mr Woods told KFVS it was the third train derailment in Rockview since the start of the year.
A Burlington Northern freight train derailed on the same section of track on April 22, and in January a Union Pacific train was blown of the tracks.
The cause of the crash is not yet known, but the National Transportation Safety Board has sent a team of crash investigators to Rockview.
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