(The following story by Petula Dvorak and Martin Weil was published in the January 27 online edition of the Washington Post.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The 81-year-old man who was pulled out of his car along with his wife just before the vehicle was struck by a train expressed his gratitude last night to the bystanders who joined to save them, in what he termed “a miracle.”
“We both could have been killed, without a doubt,” Bernie Wittkamp said of the Saturday night accident in which the car he was driving went over an embankment and ended up on CSX tracks in Beltsville as a freight train hurtled toward them.
Shaun Meyers, one of the rescuers, said last night that Wittkamp and his wife, Hilda, also 81, were in a tight spot. Two women pulled the driver out with relative ease, but his wife, who was wrapped in her seat belt, “was stuck.”
Meyers said people were watching the train approach and screaming, “You got to get out of there.” But, he said, “I always believed I could get her out,” and with another man he finally did.
Carrying her, they took about two steps away from the tracks, and “the train hit the car,” Meyers said. “It was pretty close.”
Bernie Wittkamp was bruised and his lip was cut when the car plunged onto the tracks from Ritz Way and Baltimore Avenue; his wife suffered a sprained ankle and a fractured shoulder.
He said he had not yet formally met the people from all ages, races and walks of life who helped them. But he said he wanted to thank them for what they did “without regard for their safety.”