Given the size of the wreck, he was amazed there were only four fatalities.

    "We hated to lose four, but with what we had there, it could have been much worse," he said Sunday. "We saved a lot of lives today that could have been lost."

    Fire and rescue personnel from Buchanan, Lexington, Buena Vista, Rockbridge County and Natural Bridge arrived at the scene, Woody said. State police troopers and Rockbridge County sheriff's deputies also helped direct traffic.

    State Police Sgt. Robert Black said he had 13 officers on the scene.

    "As far as damage, this is one of the worst I've ever seen," said Black, an officer for 20 years.

    Once the seriously injured had been treated, police turned their attention to the hundreds of vehicles stuck in traffic between where the highway had been closed to new traffic and the wreck scene.

    "We turned them around and had them drive the wrong way down the highway," he said.

    They faced a bigger challenge with the many tractor-trailers that couldn't turn around on the two-lane roadway.

    "We had most of them back out. That's four miles in reverse," he said. Most motorists faced a delay of one to four hours, Black said.

    He said the cooperation among all the law enforcement and rescue agencies was "textbook."

    "It's really a disaster you can't prepare for," he said.

    Wrecker trucks and cranes from Lexington's Lee Hi Truck stop arrived at the scene as rescuers struggled to free the injured from vehicles.

    "None of the vehicles involved could be driven away," Woody said.

    Bobby Berkstresser, owner of Lee Hi, said he dispatched a wrecker crew to clear the three vehicles involved in the collision that preceded the chain-reaction wreck. When they arrived, they found eight trucks and eight cars tangled on the highway.

    "They called back and said, "We need everything,'" Berkstresser said. He said it's the worst accident he's cleared in his 25 years in the business.

    "Some of the people were so trapped in there that you couldn't see them. You could just hear them," he said. "Some were trapped six or seven hours. They had diesel fuel and liquid all over them."

    Berkstresser said his crew spent 12 to 14 hours clearing wreckage Sunday. They arrived early Monday morning and planned to work until sunset removing two remaining tractor-trailers.

    Lee Hi employees delivered food from a nearby Burger King to motorists and rescue workers.

    Michael Tatro, manager of the Natural Bridge Inn & Conference Center, dispatched two of the hotel's buses to the scene to pick up uninjured people.

    "It looked like someone had taken some toy trucks and scattered them," he said. "It was unbelievable."

    Tatro said a few motorists stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on U.S. 11 raced into the lobby asking if hotel employees could heat their baby formula.

    Woody said counselors will be called in to talk to people who responded to the bloody wreck and are dealing with what he calls "mind pressure."

    "When you have a call like this, your adrenaline is pumped up so high until the call's over," he said. "That's when it kicks in, and you're going to be thinking about it."