Narrative:

I was the captain on flight from iah in the B737. We departed from [the] gate; pushed back; and ramp control gave us taxi instructions to runway 9 for departure. After receiving the taxi clearance; I turned on the taxi light and the left runway turnoff light in anticipation to the first turn being to the left. The first officer and I cleared the aircraft on both sides and I released the parking brake to taxi the aircraft.I increased thrust to about 35 percent N1. Shortly after we started to move; I am guessing that we might have traveled 50 to 100 feet and we might have reached 4 to 6 knots. I caught a glimpse of a truck traveling from east to west on my left in what I sensed was inside the wingspan of my left wing. My immediate reaction was to apply the brakes very hard to avoid a collision with this truck. I noticed that there was another truck holding at the stop point and yielding to our aircraft. However; this truck that did not yield; [and] seemed to have passed the truck that was stopped. In order to do that; he appeared to be in the opposite direction lane and he continued in that lane with a slight swerve out of the opposite direction lane towards the south as he approached the nose of my aircraft. As he approached the nose of my aircraft; he went totally out of view below the nose of the 737. We came to a shuttering stop. I then looked to the right and noticed the truck moving away from us at a brisk pace without seeming to want to stop and taking stock in what was almost a collision with our plane. All this happened very quickly and seemed to go by in a flash.the best description of the vehicle to the best of my recollection was that it was a truck with a boxy back end; kind like a lavatory truck. So; it might have been some kind of maintenance truck. I did not get any numbers or markings as the event was a startle event and I was doing everything I could the stop the aircraft to avoid a collision.I wanted to check with the flight attendants to determine if everything was okay with them. Ramp control was pressuring us to continue taxiing and he was too busy for us to tell him what happened at that particular moment. We started to taxi towards the runway and once we came to a stop waiting for traffic; I called the flight attendants to ask how they were doing. I was told that we might have two flight attendant injuries. I told them we would call them back. At that point; we had made the turn. I told the first officer to tell ramp control that we would pull into the runway 9 pad and assess the conditions of our flight attendants and passengers.I talked to the purser in the 9 pad and she told me that she and the other flight attendant working the front of the aircraft had sustained injuries and that they would like to go back to the terminal to get checked out. We requested a return to a gate and we were assigned [a] gate. On taxi in; ground control asked if we needed any assistance; and we asked them to send the paramedics to the gate. I noticed that they followed us to the gate by the time we returned.the injured flight attendants were our purser; and one other flight attendant. They were attended by the paramedics and a flight attendant supervisor removed them from further duty. Two replacement flight attendants were called to staff the flight.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737-800 Captain reported that a truck cut in front the aircraft causing them to make an abrupt stop; resulting in Flight Attendant injuries.

Narrative: I was the Captain on flight from IAH in the B737. We departed from [the] gate; pushed back; and Ramp Control gave us taxi instructions to runway 9 for departure. After receiving the taxi clearance; I turned on the taxi light and the left runway turnoff light in anticipation to the first turn being to the left. The first officer and I cleared the aircraft on both sides and I released the parking brake to taxi the aircraft.I increased thrust to about 35 percent N1. Shortly after we started to move; I am guessing that we might have traveled 50 to 100 feet and we might have reached 4 to 6 knots. I caught a glimpse of a truck traveling from east to west on my left in what I sensed was inside the wingspan of my left wing. My immediate reaction was to apply the brakes very hard to avoid a collision with this truck. I noticed that there was another truck holding at the stop point and yielding to our aircraft. However; this truck that did not yield; [and] seemed to have passed the truck that was stopped. In order to do that; he appeared to be in the opposite direction lane and he continued in that lane with a slight swerve out of the opposite direction lane towards the south as he approached the nose of my aircraft. As he approached the nose of my aircraft; he went totally out of view below the nose of the 737. We came to a shuttering stop. I then looked to the right and noticed the truck moving away from us at a brisk pace without seeming to want to stop and taking stock in what was almost a collision with our plane. All this happened very quickly and seemed to go by in a flash.The best description of the vehicle to the best of my recollection was that it was a truck with a boxy back end; kind like a lavatory truck. So; it might have been some kind of maintenance truck. I did not get any numbers or markings as the event was a startle event and I was doing everything I could the stop the aircraft to avoid a collision.I wanted to check with the flight attendants to determine if everything was okay with them. Ramp Control was pressuring us to continue taxiing and he was too busy for us to tell him what happened at that particular moment. We started to taxi towards the runway and once we came to a stop waiting for traffic; I called the Flight Attendants to ask how they were doing. I was told that we might have two flight attendant injuries. I told them we would call them back. At that point; we had made the turn. I told the First Officer to tell Ramp Control that we would pull into the runway 9 pad and assess the conditions of our flight attendants and passengers.I talked to the purser in the 9 pad and she told me that she and the other Flight Attendant working the front of the aircraft had sustained injuries and that they would like to go back to the terminal to get checked out. We requested a return to a gate and we were assigned [a] gate. On taxi in; Ground Control asked if we needed any assistance; and we asked them to send the paramedics to the gate. I noticed that they followed us to the gate by the time we returned.The injured flight attendants were our purser; and one other Flight Attendant. They were attended by the paramedics and a Flight Attendant Supervisor removed them from further duty. Two replacement flight attendants were called to staff the flight.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.