A Houston transit officer is credited with helping save the life of a woman who fell onto Metro tracks Tuesday.
Houston METRO Officer Eliot Swainson, 46, one of about 150 transit police who came to the Washington region to help Metro with inauguration security, said he heard yelling around 9:25 a.m.
A 68-year-old woman had fallen off the Gallery Place Metro station platform. He spotted her on the tracks as a train headed toward her.
At first he and another passenger tried to lift her, Swainson said, but they couldn’t move her.
The officer said he didn’t remember all that happened next, but he leaned over the platform and helped the woman tuck into a crawl space under the platform, saving her from being hit by the oncoming train.
Houston doesn’t have such crawl spaces on its light rail system. But Swainson, with other visiting transit officers, had received training the day before about Metro’s electrified third rail and the narrow crawl space.
The train came to a stop after passing the woman, pinning her between the rail car and the platform, but she did not get hit by the train.
She was treated for minor injuries and released. Swainson, a 15-year-veteran, tore his pants and scuffed his knee.
