ANDERSON, SC (WYFF/CNN) - Elizabeth Hiott could only call it “terrible” and said the 911 dispatcher didn't even believe what she was describing.
The South Carolina woman rushed outside the church where she works when she heard someone yelling, “Call 911.” The cause for alarm was a 19-year-old woman kneeling at nearby train tracks, gouging out her eye with her hands.
“It was terrible what I witnessed, it really was,” said Hiott, who works at the South Main Chapel and Mercy Center in Anderson, SC.
“It was across the street and I could see blood and could hear her screaming, and I realized something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong,” she said.
Witnesses said they attempted to stop her, but couldn’t.
“I immediately called 911 and it almost felt like the 911 dispatcher didn’t even believe me, that’s how crazy it was,” Hiott said.
By the time Anderson County deputies and emergency medical crews got to the woman, witnesses said she had gouged out the other eye. The woman was holding her eyes in her hands, fighting anyone coming near her.
Eventually the woman was put on a stretcher and flown by medical helicopter to the hospital.
Hiott said she'd seen the woman in church for some services and during meal time but that she wasn't a regular.
"Prayer and community and family is what's going to get us through this,” Hiott said.
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