Keeping Calm And Collected

A story of heroism from Chicago:

Foust didn't act alone at the Chestnut Avenue rail crossing in Glenview. Classmates Tyler Brown, 16, and Zach Demertzis, 15, helped get the woman's attention by banging on her car just before the 8:30 p.m. crash, he said.

Foust and Brown each pulled over their cars after they saw the elderly woman appear to mistake the second set of tracks at the crossing for a street.

"She just started driving on the tracks," Foust recalled. "The wheels were spinning and throwing up gravel."

Then, the crossing's warning bells started to ring, and the gates began to lower, Foust said. When the boys reached the Lexus, the woman asked if they could help move the car, not realizing the trains were approaching at speeds of up to 79 mph.

"It was getting pretty intense," Brown said. "I looked to the south, and there's a train. I looked to the north, and there's another train."

Foust was at the driver's side door. The driver "wouldn't move," he said, "so I just reached over, unclipped her seat belt and pulled her out."

Foust said he got about 10 feet from the tracks when the southbound train hit. He covered the woman as glass and metal flew. No one was hurt.