California surf instructor, 24, recovering after arm severed in horrific accident [and reattached]

KTLA ^ | 07/22/2025 | Josh DuBose

[BenLurkin]

The horrific July 7 incident unfolded just before 5:30 p.m. as 24-year-old Ventura native Elieah Boyd pushed her 80-pound electric bike across the train tracks near Seaward Avenue.

“There was no train horn. It was like three seconds from when I saw the train to when it happened,” she told KTLA’s Sandra Mitchell. “I just happened to have my hand still on the bike as the train goes by. The train barely clipped the bike, just enough to take my arm completely off.”

Just two weeks out from the traumatic injury, her arm now in a wrist-to-shoulder sling, the smiling 24-year-old said she remembers looking down and not seeing her arm, thinking to herself that there was no way what had just happened was real.

Fortunately, a retired firefighter had been walking with Boyd and as police and paramedics arrived at the scene to rush her to the hospital, he told the first responders to look for her arm.

Police later said that her severed limb was located near the crash site.

Boyd was airlifted to UC Irvine Medical Center where she endured 10 hours of surgery, and while she has at least two more surgeries scheduled in the coming weeks, she says she already has some feeling back in arm.

“Kind of like jolts of energy is what it feels like,”

[Codeflier]

I guess a big block of cheese around her arm is helping it heal?

[GingisK]

I can feel approaching trains in my feet.

[null and void]

Well so much for her being Def Leppard’s drummer.

Spinal Tap is always hiring drummers.

[George from New England]

Hmm — “pushed bike across tracks” sounds like it might have been dead batteries, in need of a charge. We must now put bike charging stations at the beach too and she’d have been fine !

[Palio di Siena]

Disarmingly cute

[vivenne]

Bwahaha!

[Dr. Sivana]

I see tons of people in that age group out and about, fully absorbed by one or more digital devices (smartphone, headphones...). Proto-zombies.

Last night I was driving my son back and was on busy Glendale Ave. in North Central Phoenix. A young man was on ear buds, looking at his phone, in the crosswalk, at 10:00 PM. He was wearing ALL black clothing. He DID have the walk light, but a car was making a left hand turn from a perpendicular street on his green light towards the crosswalk and didn't see him until the last second. The zombie did not notice until the car cam to a halt inches from him. Close enough that the zombie placed his hand on the hood.

[Cobra64]

Darwin… gene pool

[TexasGator]

“Darwin nominee ?”

Nope.

[3RIVRS]

Ear buds. Almost guaranteed. And just never looked.

[Fiji Hill]

For surfers, electric bikes, or e-bikes have replaced the woodies of the last century.

Not long ago, when I visited the Trestles Beach, a famous mecca for surfers in San Onofre, Calif. just south of San Mateo Point. I saw many surfers using e-bikes to access the beach. They do so by crossing under the long railroad trestles over San Mateo Creek—which are on the same railroad line—and don’t have to worry about getting hit by a train.

[TexasGator]

“She didn’t see any red flashing lights as the train approached?”

No red lights where she was.

[3RIVRS]

As someone who spent way too much time around train tracks as a teen you’d be surprised. Wind direction is a factor. And speed looking down the tracks is hella deceptive.

[TexasGator]

“Darwin… gene pool”

You do not make sense.

[3RIVRS]

As someone who spent way too much time around train tracks as a teen you’d be surprised. Wind direction is a factor. And speed looking down the tracks is hella deceptive.

[j.havenfarm]

Well, you have to hand it to her for making it through this. Oh… wait…

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Exactly. The rails "sing" with an approaching train. Unless you are deaf, you'll hear their "song".

[Tom Tetroxide]

Trains are the new landshark, not like the one from SNL.

[BenLurkin]

I figure it’s a clever piece of gear designed to allow for differing positions in which to rest her limb.

It looks like swiss cheese, so maybe they use yellow foam and call it a cheese-pillow. Which makes things easier for the patient because asking the nurse to bring her the cheese-pillow is easy to say and unmistakable in its intent.

But what it really is, I don’t know.

[ponygirl]

I used to live in Ventura, and Seaward was my favorite beach. To get to the beach, you drive Seaward UNDER the train tracks, so there is no designated RR crossing here, no flashing lights and bells. The train would not blow a horn here. The road includes a safe bike path, which she obviously chose not to take. It looks like she took the dirt path that skirts the overpass, meaning she was dragging her 80 pound bike across 4 rails and gravel. And those trains go FAST once they get through town.

Man, I loved living there. I hate that California has been so destroyed.