A man’s quick thinking rescued a woman whose vehicle was stuck in the middle of a railroad crossing. Camera footage shows Debbie Spoelstra driving her car over the train tracks when she panicked as the crossing gates began to lower. She quickly backed up, but her vehicle got caught while the train continued to speed down the tracks without stopping.
Woman saved within seconds of potential train accident
In August, Spoelstra found her red SUV trapped at a railroad crossing at Bridge Road and Dixie Highway in Hobe Sound, as reported by WPBF and KCRA 3.
“I was in a panic. What I did is, I put my car in reverse, and apparently the gate got stuck on top of my car on the antenna,” she recalled. “So, when I tried to reverse, it would not let me reverse. I was kind of frozen. I sat there, I saw the train.”
That’s when Josiah Baur, the driver of a car who had stopped on the other side of the tracks, sprung into action.
“Train crossing went down, and I looked down on my phone, and I glimpsed up, and I saw the car stuck behind the railroad crossing,” he recounted.
Baur sprinted across the crossing straight toward Spoelstra’s vehicle and quickly lifted the gate, allowing her to reverse a few feet. Within moments, the train barreled through the railroad crossing, narrowly avoiding a collision with the SUV.
Spoelstra said, “He came just like a hero … within seconds, the train passed by me. So it was very scary, you know, life-changing experience for me.”
Despite his daring rescue, Baur doesn’t consider himself a hero. “We think of heroes, I think police officers and military, not what I did,” he said. “It was just a good, good thing to do.”
This close accident serves as a reminder that drivers should not stop at a railroad crossing or back up if they see the gates lower if they are already driving through it. Instead, they should continue accelerating forward to get out of the crossing.
