Man narrowly escapes death on Amtrak train tracks

OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine- Local police officer and teenager narrowly rescue an 80-year-old man who was unconscious and stranded on Amtrak railroad tracks early this morning.

Town police captain Janet Paradiso instinctively rammed her cruiser into the back of the man’s stalled car to push it off the tracks thirty seconds before the train passed. She arrived at the scene at 6:05 to find unconscious Canadian tourist Francois Truffaut’s Cadillac Seville stopped on the tracks.

When she reached the location of the car, she heard the train’s whistle and panicked. “I knew there was no time. I had to do something,” Paradiso said following the incident.

The police call originally came from James Laboke, 17, of Old Orchard Beach, who discovered the vehicle while on his 4 mile daily 5 A.M. route to work at the Eezy Breezy Restaurant on East Grand Street.

Laboke spotted the 1987 pink Cadillac stopped on the tracks and knew the south bound passenger train would be arriving shortly. After failing to wake the man inside the locked vehicle, Laboke ran 100 yards to the police station to alert authorities.

“I never thought about it,” Laboke said, “I just knew I couldn’t let that man get crushed by a train.”

80-year-old Truffaut had been coming to Old Orchard Beach since he was a child. He was taken to Southern Maine Medical Center following the adrenaline-pumping rescue where he remains in stable condition.

“I don’t remember a thing,” said Truffaut, who is a diabetic. According to police reports, Quebec City native may have gone into insulin shock just as he reached the railroad crossing.