OLD ORCHARD BEACH, MAINE - "I never thought about it. I just knew I couldn't let that man get crushed by a trian" says James Laboke of the old man whom he found unconscious in his car that was parked in the middle of the train tracks.
Early this morning, a police report came in when the young boy [Laboke] ran into the police station at Old Orchard Beach proclaiming to the officers that there was a man stuck in a car that seemed to be stalled in the middle of the Downeaster train tracks. The doors were locked and the man was slumped over the steering wheel.
After getting no response from the 80-year-old man when pounding on the car window, the boy new he had no other choice but to run 100 yards to the nearest police station.
Janet Paradiso, a captain on the town police force was in her police cruiser when she heard the call come in on the radio regarding the old man and stranded vehicle. "I knew there was no time," Paradiso said, "I had to do something." She arrived at the scene, a mile and a hald from where she was parked at 6:05 a.m. today; just in time to hear the trains whistles.
Chief Brian Paul, the chief of police in Old Orchard Beach, states that Paradiso rammed her cruiser into the mans 1987 pink Cadillac Seville and pushed it from the tracks. Not more than 30 seconds later, the train passed the crossing of the incident at 40 miles per hour. "It was that close," said Paul.
The man in the car was later identified as Francois Truffaut, a tourist originating from Quebec City, Canada. Ever since he was a young child, he has been visiting Old Orchard Beach every summer. "I dont remember a thing," Truffaut said from where he was being hospitalized at Southern Maine Medical Center.
Truffaut is listed as a diabetic and is currently in stable condition where he is expected to make a full recovery. The report states that Truffaut may have gone into insulin shock, just as he reached the railroad crossing.
The young hero who is given full credit for the life of Truffaut is Laboke, a 17-year-old Afghan refugee who has been living in Old Orchard Beach for three years. Every morning he gets up at 5 a.m. only to walk four miles to his job as a waiter at the Eezy Breezy Restaurant on East Grand St., which is why he passed by Truffaut on the train tracks.
The Eezy Breezy Restaurant is located right on Old Orchard Beach in Maine, a popular summer toursit community. Here, Laboke reports to Charles Champaigne, the restaurant owner who hired Laboke about 8 months prior.
The passenger train operated by Amtrak runs from Portland, Maine, to Boston. It is called the Downeaster, and it was the Downeaster tracks that Truffaut's Cadillac was stalled on. The first train of the day is southbound that hits Old Orchard Beach at 6:10 a.m., which explains for the close call when Paradiso arrived at the scene.
After Laboke reported what he saw to the police, he went straight to work where he arrived ontime and spoke nothing of the incident to Champaigne."It doesn't surprise me at all," Champaigne said of Laboke. "That young man is one of my most responsible employees. He's just a great kid."
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