A teenager in Tennessee has been hailed as a hero for risking her life to save another person.
Earlier this month, Lily Baker, 18, saved a woman in a wheelchair from being hit by a train at a railroad crossing in Giles County with seconds to spare, according to local news outlets WTVF, WKRN and WAFF.
Baker told WTVF that she spotted a woman in need of assistance crossing the tracks in a wheelchair while she was driving. The teenager said she got out of her car to help a disabled woman cross when she noticed a train coming towards them on the tracks.
“He blew the horn and the lights started flashing. I thought, ‘Oh no, we have to go now,'” she recalled.
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Baker said, according to WAFF, that the woman in the wheelchair told her she couldn’t walk and was “in pain,” so she picked her up and tried to get her to the other side herself.
Ardmore Police Chief Jereme Robison told WKRN the couple fell onto the tracks, but Baker was able to get up and pull the woman out of the way.
“He barely gets out of the way; and the train actually still caught the lady’s leg and spun her around,” Robison said, adding, “I mean, it was like a split second. They almost died.”
He also said that the disabled woman sustained leg injuries during the rescue and was sent to the hospital, but is expected to recover. Her wheelchair, however, did not come out intact.
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Baker, who is a high school senior studying to become a nurse, told WTVF that she didn’t take what happened lightly.
“It’s a near-death experience, and I’ve never been so close to death,” she said.[The railroad company] he told me I was 18 inches away from being hit by a train and that in itself gave me goosebumps. I almost started crying.”
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Still, she told WKRN she doesn’t regret trying to help, saying, “If I had died, I would have died trying to save somebody, so it would have been okay.”
Robison praised Baker for her courage to step in, even during a scary situation.
“Courage comes in all shapes and sizes,” he told the newspaper. “You don’t have to be a 6’5″ muscular guy to get out there and do something. This is a tiny little young woman and she did what most people wouldn’t do.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education