‘Three Seconds’: Surf Instructor Describes Having Limb Severed In Freak Train Accident

A California surf instructor recalled the harrowing moment an Amtrak train severed her arm earlier in July, saying it happened without warning.

Elieah Boyd, 24, was lugging her 80-pound electric bike across the track in Ventura on July 7 when, she told KTLA 5 news, an Amtrak train appeared out of nowhere. Boyd, who endured a 10-hour surgery at UC Irvine to reattach the limb, said she never heard a horn and stood stunned afterwards, staring at where her arm should have been. (RELATED: Wrestling Legend Buff Bagwell Has Leg Amputated, Friend Says)

“It was like three seconds from when I saw the train to when it happened,” Boyd told the outlet. “I just happened to have my hand still on the bike as the train goes by. The train barely clipped the bike, just enough to take my arm completely off.”

She wrote that she was “grateful” for her doctors and bracing for “undoubtedly the most difficult journey I’ve ever faced” in an Instagram post July 16.

A retired firefighter who was with Boyd at the time urged paramedics to recover her severed arm, which they later found near the tracks, the outlet reported. The Ventura Police Department said her bike had likely “become stuck on the tracks just before the collision occurred,” contributing to the accident, the outlet separately reported. (RELATED: Professional Surfer Makai McNamara Clings To Life After Devastating Accident)

Boyd said she’s already looking forward to getting back to the beach.

“As soon as I can touch the water, I’ll be on a surfboard,” Boyd told KTLA 5. “That’s all I dream about here in the hospital. I just want to get back in the water and surf.”