San Jose Woman Gets Trapped In Caltrain Yard After Falling Asleep
SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) – A South Bay woman is urging Caltrain to carefully check their train cars at the end of the night after she became trapped inside a train after falling asleep.
Jessica Method, a 23-year-old from San Jose, told KPIX 5 that the commuter line is her preferred form of transportation.
"Something I appreciate about being on the train is I can rest or relax," Method said.
Method, who is a professor's assistant at Stanford University, said she fell asleep on the train after dinner with friends on the night of March 14th. Her stop is usually the end of the line, Diridon Station in San Jose.
"I woke up and I was on the train and there was nobody on the train and then I realized I was in the train yard," Method said.
It was 12:30 in the morning and she said her cellphone was dead. Method yelled out, but that didn't work. She took several other measures to call for help.
"I broke the glass of the emergency stop functions and the fire extinguisher, hoping to sound some kind of alarm. No alarm sounded," she said.
Finally, method made it into the conductor's car, which should have been locked. "I was able to luckily get on the radio and call for help," she said.
The first thing that Caltrain workers said was not sorry; they asked if she was drunk. Eventually, workers brought her to her intended destination at Diridon Station.
Soon after, Method posted about her experience on the agency's Facebook page.
Caltrain officials did apologize to Method, but she wants to make sure workers are checking the rail cars more thoroughly and to put in some kind of safeguard to prevent others from becoming stranded.
"There is no way to alert anyone aside from yelling," she said.
Caltrain told KPIX 5 that the employees have been disciplined for not checking the train that evening and for keeping the conductor's car unlocked.
