Elderly woman trapped under train, rescued

TIRUCHY: An elderly woman vendor had a miraculous escape after the alert gatekeeper rescued her from underneath a moving goods train at Manapparai near here on Tuesday.

Normally, goods trains used to halt at Manapparai railway station for a while for the passing express trains.

Since the goods train halts for long, the vendors and the public from the villages like Vellayakanpatti, Vidathampatti and the adjacent villages who have to cross the railway tracks, pass through the goods train and reach the market on the opposite direction.

In one such incident, on Tuesday at around 11 am, a woman vendor around 65 years old was crossing through the good train.

However, the train started moving and the woman, who was trapped between the rails, was struggling there.

On seeing this, a woman gatekeeper who was on duty raised an alarm and a few of her colleagues came to the spot.

While a few railway employees were giving instructions to the old woman who was lying there, the others passed on the information to the loco pilot who stopped the train.

After the train stopped, the woman came out safe. The railway staff who had no idea about the woman and her whereabouts, warned her and soon, she ran away from the spot. “No case was filed against the old woman,” said a railway source.