3 Rescue Elderly Woman From Tracks Just Before Train Rolls By
Three men prevented an elderly woman from being crushed beneath a freight train shortly after noon Saturday in South-Central Los Angeles, a sheriff’s deputy said.
Gertrude Block, 69, fell as she rushed across railroad tracks at Imperial Highway and Wilmington Avenue, just 100 yards in front of a Southern Pacific train bearing down on her at 30 m.p.h., said Deputy Mary Landreth. The engineer, unable to stop, blew the horn but the woman could not get up, Landreth said.
Alerted by the warning, Javier Vargas, 25, of Los Angeles and two unidentified bystanders ran to Block and dragged her off the tracks just as the train rolled by.
Block was treated at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center for a broken nose, chipped teeth and a cut, Landreth said.
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