Lilly Baker was driving to meet some friends in Limestone County, Ala., earlier this month, when she spotted a woman with a wheelchair who was struggling to cross the railroad tracks on foot.
Baker pulled up beside the tracks to see if she could help. Then she saw a train approaching.
“I got out of my car and I went over to her, and by the time I got to her, the lights started flashing on the train and the horn was going off,” recalled Baker, who lives in Athens, Ala. “I grabbed her from behind her arms and I tried to pick her up and walk with her, and we fell.”
Baker tried a second time to carry the woman off the tracks — and they fell again.
“The train was so close to us, we had no time to go anywhere,” Baker said. “It was a nerve-racking situation.”
One more time, as the train drew terrifyingly near, “I grabbed as hard as I could to get her out of there,” she continued, explaining that she pulled the woman by her jacket.
Baker said she wasn’t worried about putting herself at risk.
“I could not leave her there,” she said.
Baker narrowly saved the woman’s life — and her own. An employee of the railroad company, CSX, later told Baker the train was less than 20 inches away from hitting them both.
The train did, in fact, clip the woman’s feet, leading to two broken ankles. It also wrecked the woman’s wheelchair.
“My adrenaline was rushing,” said Baker, noting that she sat with the woman — who seemed disoriented and was in pain — at the side of the train tracks. Baker saw a nearby worker and told them to call an ambulance, as her cellphone was still in the car.
“I was just sitting there crying,” Baker said, adding that the train operator halted the train and came to check on them right away.
The woman is still in the hospital, but is recovering well, police said. The story was first reported by WAFF 48.
“It was a bad injury,” said Jereme Robison, chief of police for the Ardmore Police Department, who responded to the scene on Feb. 5. Fortunately, though, “she’s going to be fine.”
Robison has been in touch with the 53-year-old woman through a social worker. The Washington Post is withholding her name to protect her privacy.
“Due to medical reasons, she is not able to be interviewed at this moment,” Robison said, explaining that she lives in an apartment building across from the train tracks, and on the day Baker saved her, the woman was taking a shortcut after she left her home.
“It’s not a safe place to cross [with] a wheelchair,” Robison said, adding that the woman has both mental health and physical challenges. “She can barely walk.”
Robison was stunned that a teenager had the foresight and courage to save a stranger.
“I think it’s one of the bravest acts I’ve ever seen,” said Robison, who has been a police officer for 20 years. “For an 18-year-old girl who is not big in stature to risk her life to save somebody else, she just showed that bravery comes in all shapes and sizes.”
“She’s really a hero,” he added.
Baker, a high school senior, said she didn’t think twice.
“If I see anybody in any kind of trouble, I try to help them,” she said.
Although Baker has not been in touch with the woman since that day, she has heard from her family.
“They were very thankful,” Baker said. “Her sister-in-law was repeatedly telling me ‘Thank you, you saved her life.’”
Baker said her parents are proud — and relieved that both she and the woman are safe. The Limestone County Commission presented Baker with an award for her heroism on Tuesday.
Baker said she hopes her bravery inspires others to help a stranger in need.
“I hope anybody who is in a position to help will do so with no hesitation,” she said.
