Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 26, 1993 TAG: 9311260015
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CROZET LENGTH: Medium
"I still see it at night when I go to sleep," Shifflet said.
Pilkerton, 40, tried to rescue a nursing home resident who had fallen on a railroad track Sunday afternoon. Both were struck and killed by an Amtrak train, its brakes on and screeching but still moving at 60 mph.
"She was always giving to other people before she gave to herself," said her brother, James Garlock of Laurel, Md.
Pilkerton worked as a receptionist at the Windham Nursing Home on weekends to earn extra money to help out her daughter and grandchildren. During the week, she worked in an office for Virginia Power Co.
"She would do anything for anybody, no matter what she was doing," Shifflet said.
At the home in this Albemarle County town, she was more than just a receptionist. When the regular bingo caller was sick, Pilkerton filled in. She read to a blind resident, drove residents to stores on her free time and just generally made people happy, friends at the home said. She also was a volunteer at the American Cancer Society.
The nursing home resident who died, Elizabeth Bishop, also was known for her generosity - and her strong will. On the day she died, Bishop, 82, washed her roommate's clothes and made their beds and pushed a woman in a wheelchair to her room after lunch.
William Moyer, another resident, had given her a cigarette the day before. "She brought me a whole pack in return," he said. Even though she needed a walker to get around, "she went to the store for residents or anybody who needed it."
Sunday afternoon, Bishop was coming back from a grocery store across the railroad tracks from the home. She used a shortcut across the tracks rather than an underpass 50 yards away that has narrow, crumbling sidewalks.
Bishop had been warned not to cross the tracks. But as Moyer said, "She was a very headstrong lady, and that was her exercise."
Shortly before 4 p.m. Sunday, Shifflet looked from a balcony at the home and saw that Bishop had fallen on the tracks and was struggling to get up. She called Pilkerton and asked her to summon a nurse.
Pilkerton called the nurse and decided to go out herself. She got Bishop to her feet, then heard the blaring horn of the approaching train.
Rather than save herself, she tried unsuccessfully to push Bishop out of the way.
"Jumping out of harm's way would not have been Kathy," Garlock said.
"I think they almost made it," Windham administrator Jerry Carpenter said. "I really do."
Earlier that day, Moyer said, Pilkerton had talked about "getting her life on the right track, doing things for herself and making a life for herself."
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB