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Coco Warner reporting Eighteen-year-old Clearfield resident Kassandra Guymon holds her four-year-old brother close, for it was in this exact spot that she saved another four-year-old boy from an oncoming train.
"If I remember correctly, the bicycle was right here on these rocks, and before the actual train had come by, he was just playing around right here and over here. He was just kind of all over in a small radius," she explains.
Kassandra says she and her mother pulled their car over, and when they saw bars come down and heard warning bells, they realized the boy wasn't moving out of the way.
"I kicked off my sandals and I ran as fast as I could up all the way, just up this sidewalk and pulled him away from the tracks just before the train hit me and the little boy," Kassandra says.
For her heroic effort, Kassandra joins 18 other Americans as recipients the Carnegie Hero Foundation award. She'll receive a bronze medal and $3,500. She's previously received several local awards.
But the resulting recognition is something Kassandra never expected.
Her mother, Katherine Guymon, says, "I have mixed emotions about it because I feel like she wasn't doing it for any kind of an award. It wasn't on a rewarded basis kind of thing. It was just going the right thing."
"The reason why I did it is just, my parents taught me the golden rule-- you know, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'"
Despite the fact that Kassandra saved his life, she still doesn't know the identity of the little boy. She did briefly see his mother that morning. She says the woman looked at her with tears in her eyes and said thank you.
