Katie Wenszell, 28, is in critical condition after leaping onto the tracks to save her mother when she was pushed from the platform.

Witnesses say that “a man just started punching people, just going crazy,” and “hit the girl in the back of the head for no reason.” When he pushed 58-year-old Susan Wenszell onto the train tracks and into the path of an oncoming train, her daughter leapt into action to save her life.

While she succeeded in saving her mother’s life, both were still struck and drug by the train. “I saw her legs dangling, and she was crying for mercy. … It’s sickening,” a witness told FOX 5 Atlanta at the scene. “So she gets dragged a good little distance. For about 10 minutes, we’re sitting there, not knowing if she’s dead or alive.”

Both women were transported to the hospital. While Susan has already recovered from her relatively minor injuries, her daughter Katie remains in critical condition. “Swelling on the brain — they had to drill a hole in her head to relieve the pressure,” her father Jerry told Atlanta’s WSB-TV 2. She is also scheduled to undergo facial reconstruction surgery.

Katie’s father Jerry called his daughter “a hero in every sense of the word,” saying that “had she not done that, my wife would be coming home in a funeral box.”

The man who pushed Susan Wenszell has been identified as 28-year-old Christopher Patrick Brooklin. He was arrested for “Aggravated Assault and Battery in a Public Transit Station,” and is currently being held in the Fulton County Jail.