Crawling across the Tracks

Every morning, we wake up with many things on our minds. On April 22nd, my main concern was getting on an 8:25 a.m. flight to Sacramento for a business trip. My power wheelchair had been giving me problems, which I thought had been fixed the day before, but something still did not feel right.

I told myself to put it out of my mind because I needed to get to the airport. I guess I should have done what my mom has always advised me, listen to my gut.

I kissed my husband, Daniel, goodbye as I left the house at 6:18 for the 6:26 train, it only takes me 3 minutes to get to the train station from my house. When I first left, I was still apprehensive about my wheelchair, but once I turned the corner, I was feeling better, enjoying the early morning breeze blowing my hair.

I have been taking the train to and from work for more than two years. Yet every time I ride my wheelchair over the train tracks, I hold my breath and get a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach over the fear that my wheelchair will decide to stop working when I reach the tracks, an horrendous nightmare.

There are two sets of tracks I need to pass over to get to the station. After going over the first set, I usually look to the left to see if I can spot the white lights of the train. That tells me how much time I have before it arrives at the station. On that morning, as I passed the first set of tracks, I saw the bright train lights looking at me in the early morning sky.

As my chair drove over the first rail of the second set of tracks, I felt the usual rattle of my chair, then nothing. My worst fear had just became my reality! It felt like someone had just turned off my motor, my wheelchair coming to a dead stop right in the middle of the tracks. For a split second, I looked around, not believing this was happening.

I could see the lights of the train heading my way. Beginning to panic, I started screaming for help. Cars were driving by, but nobody was stopping or even slowing down to help me. I could see that the train had stopped at the Chatsworth station, so I knew I had two or three minutes before it would reach me.

While looking at that train, I saw my son, Brandon's, little face flash before my eyes and I knew I had to get out of there. I climbed out of my wheelchair and crawled on all fours across the tracks. At that point, I knew I was safe, but I still needed to my wheelchair off the tracks. I looked around and saw a Metro bus at a nearby corner. I locked eyes with the driver and screamed "HELP!!" at the top of my lungs as tears came down my eyes. He left his bus, came running over to me and asked how he could help. He pulled my wheelchair off the tracks just as the train went by. Since I am a regular rider of Metrolink, the conductor recognized me and opened the door to ask me if I was alright as they slowly passed me.

After I had called Daniel to tell him what had happened, I sat there in amazement about how I had just saved my own life. Once Daniel brought me my other wheelchair, I got in it and got on the next train to continue my journey to Sacramento.

In a moment of survival, it's amazing how much strength we find. Life is very precious, I appreciate every moment I have and every person in my life!