gender issues

Many times my private lesson students will bring in material from outside of class to get help with. Recently, one of my students brought in an article about a intoxicated women who had fallen onto a subway track in Boston(?) right before the subway pulled into the station. The driver stopped just centimeters short of the lady. An onlooker and the driver helped the lady out of the track pit.

My student was confused because they kept using the pronoun 'she' and thought this kept referring to the intoxicated lady who had fallen. I had to explain that both the driver and the onlooker who helped the lady where also 'she' and that women did drive trains and subways in the US. 'What?! but, in Japan, only men drive subways! All the people in the article are she?' ...'Yes'. ....'Wow.'