Ashley Aldridge: Young mom rescues wheelchair ‘Earl Moorman’ from oncoming train

Ashley Aldridge was at home in Auburn, Illinois, last week when she heard a man screaming. The 19-year-old ran outside to the railroad tracks near her house, heard a train blaring its horn, and saw 75-year-old Earl Moorman, whose wheelchair had gotten stuck on the tracks.

“I’m just glad he’s OK,” Aldridge said Tuesday evening, a few hours after the 1:30 p.m. incident. “The only thing going through my mind was, I hope he’s OK.”

Aldridge lives near the Washington Street railroad crossing and saw Moorman stopped on the tracks as she was fixing lunch for her two children, ages 1 and 2. When she heard him calling for help, she went over to a neighbor’s house to see if they could keep an eye on her children while she tried to help.

That’s when she heard the railroad crossing arms start to go down. She said she didn’t think and ran to the crossing.

“His back wheels were stuck on the track. They weren’t coming out,” Aldridge said. “I tried lifting the chair, but that didn’t work. Then I looked over and the train was right there. I was like, I’m going to keep trying. I tried again and I ended up lifting him just enough that I could tilt the wheelchair back and then I started pulling him.”

Aldridge was able to pull Moorman out of the chair and get clear of the tracks just as the train passed.

“Just as I pulled him back, the train hit his wheelchair… His wheelchair exploded as soon as the train hit it. There were pieces of his wheelchair clear on the other end of Auburn,” Aldridge said.

Someone in the neighborhood apparently called 911 because after the train passed, Aldridge saw that there was a police car on the other side of the tracks.

The motorized wheelchair was the only transportation Moorman had, said Dave Beck, Moorman’s son-in-law.

Beck stopped to talk to Aldridge as she was taking a walk near her home Tuesday evening.

“I was coming down to tell her thank you. I’ve hugged her I don’t know how many times today. It’s overwhelming. I can’t get over how much I’m in debt to her,” Beck said.

Beck said that when Aldridge rescued his father-in-law, the young mother put her own life at risk. He added that the rescue was even more amazing due to the fact that Moorman weighs about 200 pounds, significantly more than Aldridge.

“If she wasn’t here today with the window open, (my father-in-law) wouldn’t be here,” Beck said. “…He’s our life support. He’s our family. If we lost him, we’d lose everything.”

Agencies/Canadajournal