HAMILTON -- Just hours after they got engaged Monday, Mandy Cook and Brett Lay took a romantic moonlight stroll along some railroad tracks -- and nearly lost their lives.
Now the two 17-year-olds face juvenile charges of trespass. "All we saw were lights -- and it was too late," said Mandy, a junior at Hamilton High School, as she stood at her fiance's bedside, exchanging kisses and "I love you's" Tuesday at Fort Hamilton-Hughes Memorial Hospital.
A locomotive had surprised the young lovers. It silently rounded a bend, they say, heading toward them as they walked along a narrow train trestle. The train clipped Brett's left thigh, slicing it into a bloody mass, after he pushed Mandy to safety.
"I was right in front of the train -- and he picked me up and swung me out of the way," Mandy said. "He's a No. 1 true hero -- and I just want to shout it out loud for the whole world to hear."
The young couple's joy is sobered by Brett's painful recovery -- he's listed in fair condition -- and the criminal charges they face. Mandy's father, Mark, said he received papers Tuesday night from a Butler County sheriff's deputy, charging his daughter with a delinquency count of criminal trespassing. Brett's mother, Dinna Swanger, said police told her she could expect the same for her son.
"I can't understand how what they did could be considered trespassing. There are no signs posted out there," she said.
They face a July 21 hearing in Butler County Juvenile Court. Butler County sheriff's officials declined to comment on the charges. The events leading to the accident began around 7 p.m. Monday. Brett, of Trenton, a senior at New Miami High school, knelt on the balcony of Mandy's home on Village Street in Hamilton and proposed. "I love you with all my heart and soul, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?" he said.
"I felt happy -- a burst of energy," Mandy said. "I said yes." Within a few hours, they decided to go walking. They headed for an area in St. Clair Township they'd visited many times, planning to walk along the railroad tracks and then along a wooded trail, Brett said.
They walked along the tracks, holding hands and talking about whether to have babies, Mandy recalled.
They had to stop holding hands when they approached the bridge that crosses Four Mile Creek. The concrete strip that serves as a walkway was too narrow to allow them to walk side by side.
"Normally, the trains sound their horn," Brett said. "This one didn't."
The couple had already walked about 50 feet of the 68-foot-long bridge when they realized the train was nearing.
"We couldn't run. We would've fell," Mandy said. "So we started walking fast -- but we didn't make it."
A whoosh of air knocked the couple off their feet after Brett pushed Mandy out of the way. Although injured, Brett clung to Mandy as their feet dangled above the creek bed. They scrambled to safety. Brett then passed out, possibly from shock.
Mandy ran to nearby U.S. 127 and tried to flag down cars.
After some time, "a nice, older man with a cell phone" stopped his blue car and called 911, Mandy said.
"We'd like to find out who he is," Ms. Swanger said. "I'd like to tell him "Thank you' for giving my son a second chance."
