Eduardo Morán, a doctor at Córdoba’s Reina Sofía Hospital, suspected it was serious.
He and his wife, also a medic, had been asked to head to work after reports that two high speed trains had collided nearby.
“We were preparing different parts of the hospital,” he recalls. “Not just the emergency room, but the intensive care unit, all the surgery theatres and the regular floor. Everybody was there.”
As the patients arrived, their injuries ranged from scratches to missing limbs. Staff prioritised who to treat. Some were operated on, others monitored.
Eduardo had never seen such an influx of casualties in his 20-year career, and yet the hospital was not overwhelmed.
“We were expecting more,” he says. “Unfortunately, there were a lot of people who didn’t make it and died on the railway.”