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Last updated on Thursday, August 21, 2014
(BLOOMINGTON) - A hearing scheduled for a woman who walked on a railroad bridge in Indiana has been waived.
Stacey June Smith is charged with misdemeanor misuse of a railroad right of way for walking across a railroad bridge and falling down in front of 100-car coal train. Smith has hired a private attorney.
The incident occurred in July when an engineer thought he killed two people who dropped down on the railroad tracks right in front of his train.
But in what one man calls a miracle, they survived. The close call was caught on video.
Eric Powell with Indiana Railroad says the women were "frankly running for their lives."
Two women narrowly escaped death as they walked on train tracks near Bloomington.
Powell says the incident happened in July on the 80-foot high Indiana Railroad bridge northeast of Bloomington at Lake Lemon just after sunrise. He says people sometimes follow a trail up to the railroad bridge, where they trespass onto the bridge. There are no walkways on the bridge, because no one is supposed to be walking there.
The only things on the bridge are trains and danger.
The engineer applied the brakes in an effort to stop, Powell said. The two women have almost no good choices, since jumping from the tracks would have meant serious injuries, or maybe even death.
"The engineer threw the train into emergency braking as soon as possible. He had thought he had killed the two people," Powell says.
But incredibly, they lived.
"When the trains topped, the two women crawled out from under the engine, started running," Powell said. "The engineer yelled and asked them, 'Are you okay?' One yelled she had stubbed her toe, (but was) otherwise fine. I'm sure their nerves were as shattered as his were."
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