Blind Pedestrian Fatally Struck By Metra Train In Midlothian, Guide Dog Survives
(CBS) – The distraught husband of a blind woman killed by a Metra train earlier this week in Midlothian is replaying those final moments that changed his life forever.
The husband is also legally blind.
CBS 2's Dana Kozlov reports.
Bobby Harris was at work when he, unknowingly, talked to his wife, Kelly, for the last time on Monday.
"We had a little laugh, and I said, 'I love you, bye,'" he says.
Harris says his wife was getting ready to walk to the CVS near their Midlothian home with her guide dog, Billy.
A short time later, he heard a radio report that a pedestrian had been hit by a train at the stop near their home. When he got to his stop, a Metra employee gave him the heartbreaking news: His wife was the one, and she had lost a limb.
The 54-year-old woman died at the hospital. Harris says her dog, also hit, lost a leg.
Metra officials say Kelly Harris was standing too close to the edge of the platform with her dog. The conductor tried but couldn't stop.
Harris and her guide dog had been together for about five months.
"He was a good boy, and he was just having a little trouble getting used to things, so they were having a little more trouble bonding because she wasn't out every day," Bobby Harris says.
The couple had been married for 25 years.
Authorities have ruled the train-pedestrian collision an accident.
