Light rail rescue: Metro Transit officers save blind man from train tracks

Blind man rescued from light rail tracks

A legally blind man from West St. Paul is grateful to two Metro Transit police officers who saved him after he got lost and trapped on light rail tracks.

WEST ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A 71-year-old man from West St. Paul is grateful to two Metro Transit police officers who saved him after he got lost and trapped on light rail tracks.

Reunion with officers

What we know:

Tommy Fickett and Patrick Anderson, the officers who rescued Ron Woelfel, reunited with him three months after the incident.

"Thank you very much for saving my life," Woelfel told them.

Woelfel, who is legally blind, was trying to catch a bus to Maplewood for his sister's birthday when he lost his way in St. Paul. As darkness fell, he ended up on the light rail tracks, unable to get up after tripping and falling.

Woelfel's journey ended in Metro Transit's light rail garage yard, where he lay between the rails.

"I thought, ‘what am I going to do?’ I kept praying," said Woelfel.

He says a train passed over him, and he was hit on the head by something as it went by.

Unable to reach his phone, Woelfel used his Apple Watch to call 911.

"That watch saved you," he was told.

The officers' response

What they're saying:

Officers Fickett and Anderson found Woelfel lying on the tracks.

"When we found him lying on the tracks, he was out of it," said Fickett. Anderson added, "It was pitch black out there."

They safely got Woelfel off the tracks and to a hospital, where he was treated for bumps and bruises.

Woelfel later sent a letter to Metro Transit, expressing his gratitude to the officers and the 911 dispatcher.

What we don’t know

Woelfel is not sure how he managed to enter the fenced-in area of the light rail garage.