Seattle lesbian couple helps rescue woman from D.C. Metro tracks

The Washington Post reports:

"Help!" the disabled woman cried, her motorized wheelchair overturned a few feet away as she lay sprawled on the Metro tracks at Union Station just before midnight one day last week.

Michelle Kleisath, a 29-year-old anthropology doctoral student from Seattle, was among a crowd gathered on the platform, watching aghast. She pulled her phone from her pocket to call 911 but realized there was not enough time.

"She's going to die," Kleisath, who was in the District attending a conference on race relations, recalled thinking. "Someone has to get her off."

But thanks mainly to Kleisath and her partner, Chilan T. Ta, 26, a transportation engineering student from Seattle, disaster was averted. The couple, with help from other bystanders, rescued the woman....

Kleisath, a bicyclist, said that when she reached the woman, she realized she would be unable to lift her alone. She looked up to the platform, spotted a tall man in a dark jacket, and realized he was the panhandler she had just given a dollar to after he had complained about rising Metro fares.

"Please, come down and help me," she called. The man immediately jumped down. Another man followed, and a third. Together, they lifted the injured woman onto the platform.

(Photo by Chilan T. Ta shows Ta, left, and Michelle Kleisath in a photo from a New York trip.)