Document: Metro passengers told firefighters they were unable to open train car doors

There is new information about the Metro incident at L'Enfant plaza that left one woman dead and more than 80 people injured. A document exclusively obtained by FOX 5 shows passengers were unable to open the car doors to the train and self-evacuate.

The document is a first-hand account of what firefighters encountered when they entered the tunnel Monday afternoon and when they got to the train.

According to the document, the firefighters pounded on the door of the last train car telling the passengers to open the doors. But they said they couldn't. The firefighters, using a special key that they carry with them, were then able to open the doors, and within minutes, had found Carol Glover -- the woman who died.

"It was chaos," said Reggie Warner, a facilities manager with the Department of Homeland Security. "It was nothing we could do. We couldn't go anywhere."

Warner shot video from inside the train and he said he wanted to document what was happening inside the train because he feared that he would die.

"I thought I was gone," he said.

He was on the same train with Glover and watched helplessly as fellow passengers tried to revive her.

The 55-year-old former Navy SEAL became emotional when he began describing another passenger in distress -- a young man having a seizure.

"In the fire, people came in, picked him up, they dragged him down the car and they took him out the last door," said Warner.

Like all of us, Warner has questions about the time it took to get help to the train.

"I wish that they could still be living," he said. "That's all."

According to the document obtained by FOX 5, firefighters from Rescue Squad 1 found the train 200 feet down the tracks after walking through thick black smoke and their radios not working.

The crew worked alone evacuating as many as 100 passengers before additional help arrived.

Aldo Villalobos was also on that train. The contractor with Department of Homeland Security got on board at around 3:15 p.m., and just seconds later, he says the train came to a halt with smoke filling the train.

"It was pretty thick," he said. "It was white smoke. I knew it was electrical because of the smell. But it was pretty bad. Some of the people at the beginning were pretty tough and didn't cover their mouth. I actually started covering my mouth right away and got low."

Villalobos thinks he was on the train for an hour before help arrived. He says he survived by lying flat on the floor of the train.

"There were a lot of people panicking," said Villalobos. "A lot of people said, ‘Hey, calm down. Just keep relaxed. Slow your breathing.' That's what I was doing."

The document we obtained says the door release in all but two of the cars is found behind a panel with two screws that need to be loosened.

It is is not readily apparent that the door release is behind that panel.

Warner spent a day and a half in the hospital. He was released Tuesday night.

Villalobos did not seek medical treatment, but he says since the time from being in the tunnel, he has had a migraine and a cough.

In the document we obtained, firefighters say Glover still had a pulse as they carried her down the tracks and out of the tunnel and up the escalators where CPR was started again.