Woman saves man in wheelchair stuck on train tracks
Man pulled off tracks right before train goes by.
As a man in a wheelchair sat stuck on tracks with a train barreling toward him, a group of strangers leaped into action.
Several people rushed to help the older man and his wife, who was trying to push the wheelchair off the tracks, just moments before the train sped through, KTVI-TV reported.
Julie Flanders and her brother, Chandler Tourigny, were two people who helped the couple in Kirkwood, Mo., Thursday. Flanders said they were stopped at the tracks in their car when she looked up from her phone and saw a woman sprinting toward the tracks.
The woman was able to reach the couple and lifted the man off the tracks just seconds before the train came rushing through.
Flanders and her brother helped move the group further away from the train as their mother filmed the harrowing rescue on a cellphone.
“It all happened [in] seconds,” Flanders said. “I was like, oh my gosh, are they going to make it? Are they not going to make it?
Flanders and her brother told KTVI that the first woman was the true hero in the story.
“I want to applaud her, too, for being selfless,” Flanders said. “She definitely noticed and she went and helped somebody she didn’t even know.”
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The siblings – who are from Tennessee – did not get the good Samaritan's name before everyone left, KSDK-TV reported. But they said she deserves “all of the glory” from the rescue.
The Kirkwood train station’s safety director said it has had “a few close calls” in just the past week with people not adhering to signals and signs, KTVI reported.
The man appeared to be okay after the near-accident, and he was checked by paramedics, according to KSDK.
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