Young heroine
Ashley Marie Aldridge lives near a passenger rail track in Auburn, Ill., and on Sept. 15 last year saw a 75-year-old man attempting to negotiate a track crossing in his motorized wheelchair. As she went to check on him, the crossing’s gates and lights were activated, indicating that a train was only 20 seconds away. Barefoot, Aldridge pulled the man from his wheelchair and backed away from the track, the train passing them within seconds at about 78 m.p.h. Aldridge received her Carnegie Medal from the Commission’s Eric Zahren at Auburn City Hall in late August 2016 in the presence of family and friends and was also cited by Illinois State Representative Sara Wojcicki Jimenez.
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