Woman falls asleep, gets trapped on Caltrain

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- A San Jose commuter went through a scary ordeal on Caltrain -- 23-year-old Jessica Method fell asleep on the train, missed her stop and woke up alone in an empty train in the Caltrain maintenance yard.

"It was scary; I was scared," Method told ABC7 News in an exclusive interview. "It was the first time I felt really panicked before."

On March 14, Method was having dinner in Daly City with some friends. Later, she took BART to the Caltrain station in Millbrae so she could head home to San Jose.

"I had been working all week, I had eaten a big dinner, I was tired and it was late and I just fell asleep," she said.

Method was supposed to get off at the Diridon station in San Jose, but she missed her stop.

"When I got off the train to look around to see where I can go, I was in a train yard," she said.

Much to her surprise, she was inside the gated Caltrain maintenance yard in San Jose. The lights inside the train were still on and luckily the doors were open, but there was no one around. She also discovered her cellphone was dead. Method says she then pulled several emergency levers on the train, all in a desperate attempt to get someone to come find her.

"There were a few fences I would have had to jump not easily and that's when I reverted to a few other options," she said.

Method made her way to the conductor's cabin and found a two-way radio. Two maintenance employees working the graveyard shift quickly came to her rescue.

"It did really happen and we are so sorry, we apologized to the customer," Caltrain spokesperson Jayme Ackemann said. "Obviously, it's something we never want to happen."

Caltrain posted an apology to Method's Facebook page after she posted about the incident.

"The conductors were disciplined and we are going to be talking to all of our employees to remind them about the protocols and what's appropriate when closing at the end of the night," Ackemann said.

Caltrain says it has happened before. Last December, a man fell asleep only to wake up in that same maintenance yard, but the man managed to hop the fence.