80-year-old Tourist Nearly Gets Crushed by Train

Almost crushed and killed by an Amtrack train, 80-year-old Francois Truffaut, was discovered by a young man on his way to work who quickly ran to the nearest police station 100 yards away.

The Downeaster, an Amtrack train was making its first run through Old Orchard Beach, Maine around 5:55 a.m. Danger arose when James Laboke found a car stalled on the tracks with a man slumped over the steering wheel, while he was walking to his job four miles away. Laboke pounded on the window and tried to open the locked doors, but Truffaut, a tourist from Canada, remained unconscious.

Janet Paradiso, a captain on the town police force, was a mile away when she heard the call on the radio.

“I knew there was no time,” she said. “I had to do something.”

Paradiso shortly arrived on the scene and rammed her police cruiser into Truffaut’s 1987 Cadillac to push it off the tracks, according to Brian Paul, chief of police. Thirty seconds later, the train passed by.

“It was that close,” Paul said.

Laboke surprisingly made it to work at the Eezy Breezy Restaurant on time despite the scary circumstances. “It doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Charles Champaigne, Laboke’s boss. “That young man is one of my most responsible employees. He's just a great kid.”

According to the police report, Truffaut, a diabetic, may have gone into insulin shock just as he reached the railroad crossing. He is in stable condition. From his hospital bed at Southern Maine Medical Center, Truffaut says, “I don’t remember a thing.”

Laboke didn’t even have to think twice about deviating from his normal routine to work. “I never even thought about it,” he said. “I just knew I couldn’t let that man get crushed by a train.”