RTD is recognizing the following employees today for the selflessness they displayed when encountering an emergency situation late last month. While the team is not used to this sort of attention, they kindly agreed to share their story.

The members of the N Line maintenance crew rolled into the Tuesday morning after Memorial Day weekend with a manageable workday before them. 天气预计会暖和，但不会太热. The track team planned to head toward the end-of-line Eastlake•124th Station for a switch inspection, Jeff Wineteer, 信号组的高级指导员和主管, thought a joint inspection involving both teams would be a good idea. 该组织每个月都对每个开关进行监视, checking for operation and longevity in accordance with Federal 铁路road Administration standards. 名单上的第一个:控制点湖, just south of the station and east of Claude Court in Thornton.

Out on the alignment, a dozen colleagues focused their attention on the task before them. “And then we heard something that sounded like a car impact, 就像一辆车撞到另一辆车和一些旋转的轮子,Wineteer回忆道. The sound was coming from a parking lot of a maintenance and operations facility for the city of Northglenn, 大约150码远. 船员们继续他们的工作. 一列火车从这群人身边经过. Signal maintainer Josh Hunter looked toward the parking lot and saw what looked to be smoke rising from a vehicle – and flames. 他打电话给RTD调度, alerting them to a potential issue and the need to send emergency personnel from the city.

The group assumed at that point that anyone in the car had gotten out, Wineteer说. Their view of the vehicle was somewhat obscured by a green Toyota Tacoma. 但他有一种感觉，无论如何他都应该去看看, so Wineteer picked up a railroad anchor – a tool that is affixed directly to the rail that keeps ties from moving – in the event he needed to break a window. 当温尼提尔穿过马路向停车场走去时, Hunter told him that it looked as if someone was in the car.

“在那一刻，我开始跑步，”Wineteer说.

当他走到车旁时, 一辆黑色林肯MKZ, Wineteer saw that the driver’s side door was ajar and observed smoke rolling out underneath. The sedan had somehow high-centered itself on a parking lot median with the passenger door pinned against a small tree. An adult was sitting in the passenger seat and appeared unresponsive.

“我喊道，‘嘿，你得从车里出来. 着火了.’那个人没有回应，”温内特尔说. 我又喊道.” The smoke beneath the driver door began turning to flames. 那人说了些听不懂的话. Wineteer ran to the other side of the car and saw that the passenger door was partially obstructed. He was able to wedge the door open enough to help the person out of the car. As the individual moved, Wineteer heard a popping sound from beneath the hood.

“My mind went into movie mode, like this thing is about to blow up,” he said. “What I actually think was happening is the catalytic converter was hot, 可能是他把地膜点着了. But in that moment, I thought, you need to get out of that car right now. 我们得走了，情况不妙.”

从团队听到Wineteer开始大喊的那一刻起, several of them stopped what they were doing and jumped a 6-foot fence to assist. 拉斐尔•古铁雷斯, 高级指导员、赛道主管, 亨特和另一位信号维护者乔丹·萨尔巴托, 铁路工人多米尼克·德格兰德在几秒钟内赶到. 到那时, the person was responding – and it was clear from the phlegm and mucus Wineteer observed that the individual was having a hard time breathing. 他把右臂支在那个人的腋下, and they walked toward the opposite side of the parking lot to sit on a curb. Wineteer was aware that the flames from the vehicle were leaping higher.

“我说，‘慢慢地深呼吸. 咳出来.’ Coughing out whatever smoke had been inhaled seemed like an OK idea,温尼提尔说. “That’s what my parents always told me to do when I was little and had a cold.”

在几分钟内, 诺斯格伦警察局就在现场, 温尼提尔告诉他们需要救护车. A police officer pulled on gloves and knelt to offer some initial first aid. Northglenn employees ran from the city building with fire extinguishers and used them to hit the fire beneath the car doors. 消防队员, 当他们到达时, vented the hood of the car with a pickaxe and doused the car one final time.

Afterward, Wineteer approached the driver door of the car to pick up his railroad anchor. “One of the investigators standing there said, ‘I couldn't figure out what that was,’温尼提尔说. “I told him, ‘I was going to break a window if I needed to.’他说，‘你的反应真快.’” Wineteer had to drop the hot tool as soon as he picked it up.

Wineteer learned later that the individual was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and was released. 他有很多问题. 林肯是怎么停在那里的? 有司机吗?? This is not the first time this fourth-generation railroader had rendered aid – 17 years ago, he helped an older gentleman and his wife out of their car after it flipped on an icy road – but the incident in Thornton was the first time he had been that close to an emergency as it happened.

Wineteer thinks about the easy morning the group anticipated and how they came to be in that place at that moment. “我们需要在那里提供帮助，”他说. “我对此毫不怀疑.” He praises the quick response of his colleagues, both those beside him and in dispatch.

这是心灵的平静, Wineteer说, in knowing that he and his team members can rely on one another for help in high-stress situations like this one. 它肯定了这个群体拥有正确的价值观.

“To see all of our guys respond in that circumstance to help this person, 这是特殊的, and I appreciate that about the people that RTD has brought together to help bring the N Line to life,温尼提尔说. “我认为这很有说服力. 真的，我知道.”