“Talk about an extraordinary story”: Gov. Evers plans state honor for Scouts

FOX CROSSING, Wis. (WBAY) - We continue to follow the homecoming for the 16 Appleton Boy Scouts who played a big role in the rescue of passengers after the Amtrak train they were riding crashed in Missouri.

Tuesday evening, all of them arrived in Wisconsin on a private plane. We watched as the scouts came off the plane, many looking exhausted but with a sense of pride. They are now the talk of the entire country.

Their private plane flying out of Columbia, Missouri, touched down at Austin Straubel International Airport just outside Green Bay amid a ton of excitement from parents and local Boy Scout leaders wanting to know every detail of the role they played just after the train crash.

“Obviously the first thing we did is we tried getting the windows of the train out. That way we could get everyone out. Then, as people started getting out, more and more people just started helping people climb up and out,” 15-year-old Matt Suprise said.

Matt has a few scars on his face he’s now showing off, plus a pair of broken glasses.

Four people died from the crash that happened when a dump truck drove onto the rural railroad crossing that had no lights or signals. Four people died, including the dump truck driver. Two engines and eight cars derailed. Some of the scouts told us it was an experience that’s still hard to comprehend.

“I remember one of the boys -- not in my troop but in my crew -- kept going out there and trying to see if anyone needed help, and he was the one who ended up comforting the driver of the truck,” Suprise said.

Scout leaders say two of the eight adults who were with the scouts on their trip remain in a Missouri hospital but are expected to recover from their injuries.

“We are so blessed and lucky. We had a lot of help. We called in a lot of favors to get them in here tonight,” Troop 73 scout master Dan Skrypczak told us, “and of course our thoughts and prayers are with John and Sanjay who are both still hospitalized in Missouri, but we will get them home next as soon at they are medically cleared.”

We asked the governor during a stop in New London on Wednesday about whether the Boys Scouts could receive state recognition. He does hope to provide them with some type of state honor.

“We have reached out, and we haven’t got to the right people yet but we will,” Gov. Tony Evers said, “but you talk about an extraordinary story. The Boy Scouts were helping people who desperately needed help in that train crash and actually saved lives while risking their own.”

“It’s just another way to describe what Boy Scouting is all about, whether it’s also a great opportunity to celebrate kind of the resilience of Wisconsinites and how they always step up,” Evers added.

The Boy Scouts are taking a break from the media attention. They tell us they’re getting some much-needed rest.

But each of the scouts wrote a letter detailing their experience helping with the rescue. Those letters were dropped off at the local Boy Scout office. We’ll share some of what they wrote on Action 2 News at Ten.

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