An alleged drunk driver was pulled from her car moments before a train hit the vehicle at nearly full speed. The accident happened at about 1:50 a.m. Oct. 23 along FM 1774 in Magnolia.

Early Saturday morning, Magnolia PD Cpl. J. Lopez was working a traffic stop with another patrol vehicle on FM 1774 when he heard a car impact the train tracks. He quickly left the incident at hand to investigate the accident.

Pictured, the train as it collides with the suspect’s car.

A woman driving a Honda Civic that had been traveling East on Nichols Sawmill drove through the grass, over the train tracks and turned her car around to head back west towards FM 1774. The vehicle lost a tire, then attempted to drive back over the tracks before coming to a halt on the tracks.

Lopez approached the vehicle with a 26-year-old female inside, who he said appeared intoxicated.

“Her car went airborne over the tracks. She U-turned to come back over the tracks,” Lopez said. “She had no idea where she was.”

As Lopez moved the barefoot suspect towards his patrol vehicle, he dispatched wrecker services and notified Union Pacific to alert them about a vehicle on the train tracks.

A wrecker arrived and the drivers attempted to attach the car to their truck to tow it off the tracks but Lopez saw the men run away from the tracks towards the woods as the train approached.

The train gave two long blasts from its horn before colliding into the vehicle nearly at full speed. Lopez was able to get the suspect inside his patrol car and back away from the tracks in case of flying debris just seconds before the train made impact with the car.

Pictured, the car after it was carried more than 100 yards by the train.

“This is our hero of the day,” said Chief of Police Domingo Ibarra of Lopez.

The train pushed the car more than 100 yards and was not able to stop until Oak Crossing and Magnolia Boulevard.

“If Lopez had been there a few minutes later or had ended up escorting someone else to the county jail he would not have been able to save her,” Detective Brian Clack said

The suspect was taken to Montgomery County Jail and is facing DWI charges. Authorities are not releasing the suspect’s name at this time.

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