It was late, about 10: 15 p. m., when Janice Esposito arrived at the Bellport train station; she jumped into her Honda Odyssey and began the 20-minute drive home to her husband and seven-year-old son. She'd just returned from visiting her mother and had traveled the route many times before. She practically1on autopilot: a left onto Station Road, then a left on Montauk Highway, and then— wham! Out of nowhere a car T-boned Esposito's minivan,2her to move backward some 100 feet onto the railroad tracks. She3in the minivan, bruised (撞伤) but mostly just knocked out by the4and the airbags.
As it happened, Pete DiPinto was getting ready for5. He'd just closed his book and was getting under the covers when he heard the sound of metal on metal and breaking glass coming from not far outside his bedroom window. A volunteer6and retired teacher, DiPinto, 64, never7to think. He grabbed a flashlight and, still dressed in his pajamas (睡衣), ran out the door. "Any firefighter would have done what I did," he told Nevosday. "We're always on duty."
The first car he came upon, 2,000 feet from his front yard, was the one that had8Esposito. Once DiPinto concluded the driver was OK, he looked around and9Esposito's minivan positioned on the railroad tracks. And then he heard a terrible sound: the bells signaling an oncoming train.
"The gates were starting to come down," he told Nezvsday. "I see the headlight of the train." DiPinto ran quickly to Esposito's minivan and knocked on the driver's side window. She10looked at him, her eyes unfocused. "I don't know where I am," she said. She seemed unhurt. "Honey, you're on the railroad11," DiPinto shouted. "We have to get you off right now!" He pulled hard on the handle, but the door was crashed in and12. The heavy diesel train, traveling at 65 miles per hour, was moving fast toward them. DiPinto ran to the passenger side and threw open the door. "Please, don't let her be13," he thought. He pushed aside the deflating (瘪了的) airbags, grabbed Esposito's arms, and pulled her toward him across the passenger seat until he could help her out and quickly get her to14behind a signal box a few feet away. Within six seconds, he estimated, the train crashed into the minivan. "It was like a Hollywood movie" DiPinto told reporters the next day.
But this one had a twist. "Last night," South Country Ambulance chief Greg Miglino told CBS New York, "the15arrived in pajamas, not in a fire truck."
