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Adrenaline Shot
Traffic had begun to back up near the train crossing, which meant that even more people would be in danger if the train derailed. Caldera was grateful when two men hopped out of their cars to help try once more to push the trailer off the tracks. But with the front hitch digging into the asphalt, it was no use.Just then, Debord saw a tow truck. She jumped up and down and waved her arms. "Stop! We need help!" The driver looked her in the eye but kept going.
"Look at all these cars!" she then shouted. "What if somebody gets killed?"
Caldera again spoke calmly. "That's not going to happen -- we're going to get out of here in plenty of time," he reassured her. But he quietly wondered. It was 2:53.
When a sheriff's deputy showed up to redirect traffic, Caldera sent one of the two good Samaritans in search of a floor jack. Seconds later, the railroad arms came down and bells started clanging. The call hadn't reached the train in time. Here it came, five minutes early.
Caldera felt a shot of adrenaline. After years of camping with his four kids in a small trailer, he suddenly remembered that RVs were required to have emergency chains. He hurriedly found the chain attached to Debord's trailer and tightened it around the truck's hitch.
"Quick -- jump in!" he told Norton. "I want you to floor it!" By now, everybody could see the train approaching at 60 mph. The engineer was blasting the whistle.
"Gun it!" shouted Caldera. Norton pressed down on the accelerator, slowly rocking the trailer forward. She punched the accelerator one more time, and the trailer rolled off the tracks. Five seconds later, a five-car commuter train streaked past.
Caldera and the two sisters were less than ten feet away from the tracks. As the train rushed by, they all felt a warm wind blow through their hair. Caldera looked down at his hands. They were shaking. "That was a close call," he said quietly.
He learned later that somewhere between 60 to 100 people were on board. "If the train had struck the trailer, it certainly would have derailed," says city employee David Peterson.
After the ordeal, Caldera let Debord borrow the pin from his truck, then followed her home to make sure she got there safely. "He was such a calming influence in all that chaos," she says.
"It took a while for me to relax after what happened," Caldera admits, "but I know now that somebody upstairs was looking out for us that day."
Although the city council honored their employee for his brave actions on the tracks, Caldera says there has been a bigger reward. "My kids now like to brag about me at school," he says.
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