Starletter Williams saved Nancy T. Mayes from being struck by a train, Gastonia, North Carolina, January 7, 1998. Ms. Mayes, 49, remained in her automobile, which, in dense fog before sunrise, became stuck between tracks on a rail bed. A freight train approaching the scene at 45 m.p.h. on one of the tracks was observed by Starletter, 14, high school student, and others with her who were in a car stopped in traffic nearby. Starletter immediately exited the car and ran about 30 feet to the driver’s side of Ms. Mayes’s car. She yelled to Ms. Mayes to get out of her car, then opened its driver’s door, grasped Ms. Mayes by the arm, and pulled her out. Starletter and Ms. Mayes ran from the track and were just a short distance from it when the train, at only slightly diminished speed, struck Ms. Mayes’s car, destroying it.
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