September 07, 2017
Having just fled from a likely landfall of one of the most powerful hurricanes on record, a New Jersey woman woke up to a commuter's nightmare this week.
The woman, whom NJ.com identified Thursday as Claire Connelly, said she fell asleep on an NJ Transit train Wednesday night. When she awoke, the train was empty and shut down in a desolate rail yard, which the news site reported was in Raritan.
"I literally just fell asleep on my train. I'm in a train yard. Literally, there's no one on this thing," she said in a frantic 10-second video posted to Twitter.
NJ.com reported Connolly, of Highlands, Monmouth County, was traveling to her parents' home after she had been evacuated from her college in Florida as Hurricane Irma continues to approach the state from the Atlantic Ocean. She reportedly spent close to $1,000 for a flight home, drove six hours to an airport, had a layover in Detroit and finally landed in Newark on Wednesday.
In a caption posted with the video, Connelly said she had to make "an interesting 911 call." Raritan police let her out of the train, and her parents picked her up from the yard, she wrote.
only i would wake up on an empty NJTransit train parked and shut down in a trainyard 2 hours from my home. that was an interesting 911 call pic.twitter.com/cdSkCTtQry
— claire bridget (@claaiirreeyyy) September 6, 2017
awh omg no one woke u up?! i would've cried
— yer (@MadelineBreww) September 7, 2017
She later said on Twitter she had screamed at the top of her lungs calling for help, to no avail. The battery on her cell phone was down to 5 percent, and she was glad there had been enough power on it to call police, she said.
"Honestly I probably won't take the train again," she tweeted. "I'm pretty horrified."
LMFAO CLAIRE NOOOOO 😂😂😂 https://t.co/6P4kFOvYC1
— Vic (@victoriazayas_) September 7, 2017
An NJ Transit representative replied to Connelly's initial tweet and asked if she was still on the train, but she police had already helped her by that point, she said.
The kicker?
She was on the wrong train to begin with, she said. It's a fitting cap to a hellish journey home.
"The guy who checks tickets didn't even notice mine said Middletown NJ," she wrote.
NJ Transit officials are reportedly investigating the incident.
