A series of unlikely delays put Vero Beach resident Eileen Wetzel in the right place at the right time to save an elderly woman stuck on the railroad tracks with a Brightline train barreling toward her.
The incident occurred about 7 p.m. on Oct. 3. A woman pushing a shopping cart full of her belongings was in the process of crossing the railroad tracks at 21st Street and U.S. 1 when both her crutch and one wheel of the cart got wedged in the tracks, so she couldn’t move.
Wetzel noticed the woman in peril as she was crossing the tracks in her car, just as the bells and warning lights started flashing. She quickly wheeled into the Chamber of Commerce parking lot, jumped out of the car and ran straight into the path of the oncoming train to help.
“I have been taking care of my 16-year-old granddaughter, Emily, while my daughter is in South Carolina doing utility restoration work,” said Wetzel. “We had dinner at her house in Vero Lake Estates, went to the dollar store to get materials to make sunflowers for her homecoming, and then headed to my house in Vero to use my color printer.
“I didn’t really want to run those errands but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been in that area at all,” she said.
“When I stopped the car Emily looked back and said the woman was still there and not moving. I told her to stay put, jumped out of the car and just ran as fast as I could toward the tracks. The crossing arms were already going down so I dodged them and ran to the woman. She was very weak and confused. She was trying to dislodge the cart but wasn’t strong enough.”
“I put my arm around her and pulled the cart out of the track,” Wetzel continued. “The first gate was already down and the second was in motion. I knew we couldn’t go around it so I pushed the cart under, pulled her with me as we crouched under the arm. We hadn’t even stood up yet when the train barreled by us.”
Wetzel said that from the time she started running, she never looked up at the train again.
“My brain was focused on solving the problem. The bells were ringing, the gates were going down and the woman wasn’t moving,” she said. “Subconsciously I knew that I couldn’t do anything about the train but I could help her. Had I looked at the oncoming train again it may have cost me seconds when that’s all I had.”
Wetzel estimates it all happened within a minute or two. According to a Brightline spokesperson, in general only about two minutes elapses between the time the crossing guardrails start closing and the time the train crosses that intersection.
Once out of danger, Wetzel helped the woman gain her balance and embraced her. Another Good Samaritan ran over to help and together they assisted the woman in crossing U.S. 1 to the laundromat, which was where she was headed when she got stuck.
“She was seemingly oblivious to what just happened and even asked us if we would get her a cup of coffee,” Wetzel said. “I don’t think she fully comprehended what was happening. There’s an innocence and vulnerability of a person who’s mentally not really aware of what’s going on.”
Later, Wetzel flagged down a police officer who told her that he knew of the woman with the crutch and shopping cart, and she went by the name of Judy. He believed she may be homeless.
When asked why she would risk her own life to save the life of another, Wetzel simply responded that it was the right thing to do. She explained that she is the wife of a lifetime Coast Guard sailor and oil rig man, so she has been on her own a lot and is very independent.
While she earned a nursing degree, she never really practiced medicine because she was busy raising four children while her husband traveled. That independence and compassion is what drove her to react so quickly.
“It never once occurred to me not to help her,” she said. “I was determined that we were both going to get through this. I am convinced that every second from leaving Emily’s house to getting to that crossing was timed perfectly so I would be there to do it. It was divine intervention and I had faith in what was happening.”