California Surf Instructor on the Mend After Losing Arm in Accident

LOS ANGELES (KTLA) A Ventura surfing instructor whose arm was severed in a collision with an Amtrak train earlier this month is recovering after a grueling surgery to reattach the limb.  

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 affiliate 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,” she told KTLA. “I do have feeling internally that it’s healing.”  

An avid surfer and surfing coach, the 24-year-old knows there’s a challenging road to recovery, but said she is already looking forward to the day she is paddling back into the ocean.  

“As soon as I can touch the water, I’ll be on a surfboard,” she said. That’s all I dream about here in the hospital. I just want to get back in the water and surf.”  

A GoFundMe has been organized for Boyd while she remains in the hospital.