Lodi police officer rescues man in wheelchair from oncoming train
Lodi police officer rescues man in wheelchair from oncoming train in dramatic video gone viral.
A police officer in Northern California pulled a man from a wheelchair that was stuck on railroad tracks seconds before the train came past in a dramatic rescue caught on the officer’s body camera.
Lodi, California:
Oh. My. God.
This Lodi police officer saved a man’s life from oncoming train.
She saw this man stuck in his wheelchair on the tracks. She jumped out of her car and was able to pull him out of his wheelchair at the very last moment…https://t.co/Pvg1xpOSmY
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) August 13, 2020
Officer Erika Urrea of the Lodi Police Department was patrolling Wednesday near the train tracks when she saw the man and the railroad crossing arms starting to come down, the Police Department said in a statement.
In the video, Urrea rushes from her patrol car and tries to push the man and the wheelchair out of the way as the oncoming locomotive sounds its horn. Unable to move the wheelchair, Urrea is seen dragging the man from it seconds before the train barrels through, striking the wheelchair and the man’s leg, the department said.
“Officer Urrea risked her own life to save another, and her actions prevented a tragedy,” the statement said.
“I was trying to figure out ‘OK, where’s the train? I don’t know how fast the train is going. How much time do I have?’ But my goal was, ‘I need to get him off the tracks,'” Urrea said.
“Honestly, it seems like I’m watching someone else’s video. It’s very surreal … it was scary to watch.”
The man was taken to the hospital and he was in stable condition on Thursday.
“As the incident happened very quickly we believe the chair wheel was stuck in the groove between the railroad track and the cement,” Lodi police Lt. Michael Manetti said.
The 66-year-old man was taken to a hospital to be treated for a leg injury and remained hospitalized Thursday, said Sgt. Ricardo Garcia, a Lodi police spokesman.
