Girls Trapped on Bridge Manage to Escape Before Train Strikes

— -- Two Wisconsin girls were trapped on a single-lane bridge nearly 200-feet above the St. Croix River as a train approached last Saturday.

Both teenagers survived according to St. Croix County Chief Deputy Scott Knudson.

"Somebody from the train had called and advised that there were two females on the bridge,” Knudson told ABC News. "They were trying to get off the bridge but were unable to do so. One was trying to run and the other was holding on.”

The Arcola High Bridge in Somerset, Wisconsin, runs nearly a mile long and towers 184-feet above the St. Croix River.

"The bridge was built in 1909 and it's an older structure," Knudson said.

According to the police report, multiple witnesses saw the girls on the bridge when the train approached, but the two girls have not been identified and could not be located after the incident.

“The train had stopped because they were advised to make sure no one was hit," Knudson said. “We never located the females.”

The railroad workers verified that no one was hit, and it is possible the girls fled the scene after the incident because walking on the historic steel-arch bridge is illegal.

"It could have been much worse," Knudson said, adding that when someone falls from that bridge, “we don’t have survivors.”