2 women narrowly escape death on railroad tracks

A 14,000-ton freight train is heading through the Shuffle Creek Trestle, a 500-foot-long, 80-foot-tall bridge over Lake Lemon in Monroe County. Up ahead are two women on the bridge, running for their lives.

The engineer sees them as the train comes around a curve at 30 mph and pulls the emergency brakes. But the slowing train still gains on the women, and they have nowhere to turn.

One woman lies down between the rails. The other follows suit seconds later. The train runs over them.

That's the scene from a video released Tuesday by the Indiana Rail Road Co. The two women barely avoided death by lying below the train as it passed over, according to a press release from the company.

The women shown in the video were trespassing on the railroad tracks over Lake Lemon, 10 miles northeast of Bloomington, Fox59 reported.

The engineer assumed the women were killed and notified authorities. They not only survived but escaped to a nearby vehicle and fled the scene, according to the company's statement.

Tom Hoback, founder and president of the Indiana Rail Road Co., said in the statement, "The consequences of trespassing on railroad-owned property are never taken seriously by those choosing to do so, and this incident at Lake Lemon is one of the most glaring examples I've seen in more than 40 years in this business."

The company said 908 people were killed in the United States by trespassing on railroads in 2013, and 38 of those deaths occurred in Indiana.

Call Star reporter Steph Solis at (317) 444-6494. Follow her on Twitter: @stephmsolis.