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Green Line Operator Applauded For Helping Blind Man Across Street

BOSTON (CBS) - Catrina Mitchell has been a Green Line trolley operator for seven years -- since she was just 21 years old. It can get chaotic.

"I have to be the eyes of myself, the cars, the bikes, and the buses because we are all on the road at the same time," she explains.

Mitchell says she loves the job partly because of the people she gets to meet.

And she knows well the chaos of Brigham Circle, so early Wednesday morning she also knew that the blind man trying to navigate this intersection was in big trouble.

"There were so many people getting off and I'm like, 'Wow, this is weird. Nobody is helping him,'" she says. "He kept stepping on the street, then out of the street."

The stranger, she says, wasn't even a T passenger.

"He wasn't on the tracks, he was on the island. But if he would have stepped off, he would have been in my way. So I didn't move at all. I just kind of sat there and said OK, he needs help," she says.

Mitchell continued: "I had him hold on to me, because we are taught not to grab onto them because it scares them. And he grabbed on to me; he was very nice. We just chit-chatted a bit about the weather, you know, general stuff. And I helped him across the street. He was like, 'Have a good day.' And I got back on and I continued my day."

As it turned out, the wife of a Boston Police captain saw her act of kindness and told her husband, who tweeted it out.

So Mitchell ended up with a moment of recognition for going above and beyond.

"I was happy, because like I said, we have had a tough winter. We have had a lot of heat on us, so it's nice for somebody to really recognize that we are really helpful when it comes to the public. We do a really good job. And I don't think a lot of people recognize it."

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