Intoxicated Man Hit By A Train Lives to Thank His Rescuer
A Good Samaritan in Osceola County got a speeding locomotive to hit the brakes in the nick of time to avoid killing a drunk man lying on the train tracks.
The small town of Marion is where some of us call "up north" in Michigan, roughly twenty miles southeast of Cadillac. Not much happens there, but people will remember this for a long time. On Friday, August 13, in what sounds like a horror story/math problem mashup, a train had just left Marion heading north. A man in a pickup did a double take as he saw someone lying on the tracks in the path of the oncoming engine. UpNorthLive.com reports the passerby drove towards the man to help. The engineer of the Great Lakes Central Railroad started braking when he saw the truck, unaware of the presence of the man on the tracks. Although the train could not stop completely in time to avoid hitting the intoxicated man on the tracks, his injuries are critical, not fatal.
The Osceola County Sheriff said the level of intoxication is believed to be the factor in the incident. It's also believed that the Good Samaritan coming to help made a difference. Investigators said seeing the Good Samaritan's truck allowed the train engineer to attempt to stop the locomotive much faster, reducing the injuries of the man on the tracks.