Jackie Baird explains her harrowing experience of her car getting hit by train
On Friday, Jan. 28, Jackie Baird was going about her usual morning routine when in the blink of an eye, she and her son Mikey had a near death experience in Plant City.
She was taking her son to school and during a conversation, she briefly turned her eyes toward him as she was nearing the train tracks at Sammonds Road and Alexander Street.
It was happenstance that a train was moving head on toward her Jeep Compass.
“He asked me a question…I looked at him and at the same time I looked back [at] the arm at the tracks.
“It slammed down on my windshield and pinned me. I tried to go in reverse – it wouldn’t move. I tried to go in drive – it wouldn’t move, and my engine was on.”
Her front wheels and bumper were already over the tracks when the crossing gate came down.
Baird recounted hitting her brakes and barely having time to react when she saw the train coming from her right- hand side.
She went on to state, “My first thought when I realized it was going to hit us…I told my son ‘hang on’ because I didn’t want to scare him, but I honestly thought we were done.”
The train only made impact with the front bumper, forcing the car to shift left, and immediately the airbags were deployed.
Baird made an attempt to get out of the car and pull Mikey out on the passenger side.
Because the airbags were obstructing their view, they didn’t realize that the car was on fire.
Two men who saw the fire came running toward the car and alerted Baird about the fire under the hood.
She said, “I don’t know who the two gentlemen were, but I do owe them a big thank you because if it hadn’t been for them, we would still be in the car, and we could have gotten burned more from the fire.”
Baird and her son were transported to the hospital for examination.
Both had suffered minor burns and bruises, she said.
Baird was going to call her mother but left her phone in the car and had to ask the hospital for her mother who was her emergency contact.
Once Baird was able to get in touch with her father, both he and her mother rushed to their daughter and grandson’s side as quickly as possible.
When she and Mikey were later discharged and went back home, she downloaded the KiK app on her tablet to message her friends about the incident. Some were able to immediately head to her house and offer support. She was baffled about how it could have happened.
“I grew up here, so I know how the trains are,” Baird said. “I know usually the times the trains come through here.”
For two days she stayed away from Facebook because she didn’t want to see photos of the wreck.
That following Sunday, she and her family went through the burned car to see what she could salvage.
She found some of her possessions that were still intact, including her bible.
She was able to find her phone after hearing the alarm go off. Its case was melted to the dashboard but the phone itself had barely been damaged.
She noted that she sustained more injuries than her son but is recuperating.
“My pain is getting lighter and lighter every day,” Baird said. “My chest still hurts. If I cough or I sneeze, my chest hurts like crazy.”
Her emotional and psychological pain has still been lingering.
Her uncle was killed in 2018 by a train.
He was a tow truck driver just like her father and he attempted to remove a car that had stalled on the tracks.
As a result, his truck became stalled and he didn’t survive the impact of an oncoming train.
Baird said she was concerned about her father. His brother died from a train accident and his daughter and grandson almost died by one.
She has had nightmares, reliving the accident and has felt a sense of guilt for her son almost dying.
He too has felt guilty for asking his mother a question and her shifting her eyes briefly off the road. Baird has reassured him that he didn’t do anything wrong.
She noted that right before the accident, she didn’t hear the bell when the gate was about to go downward, or when the train horn was going off.
She suffers from dissociative amnesia, where she has no recollection of important events, and has been seeing a therapist.
Now she sees her same therapist for this new incident and has encouraged her son to use therapy as well.
She has several tattoos on her body that all are symbolic and she plans on getting a new one.
It will be 20-sided dice and a baby dragon as she is a fan of Dungeons and Dragons as well as Harry Potter.
The pain that comes along with the process of getting inked, alleviates tension, Baird said.
The advice she has for others is, “Don’t take the small things for granted and make sure that every day your family and friends know that you care about them.”
