Man dies pulling stranger off tracks

Man dies pulling stranger off tracks

UNITED STATES- A 35-year-old man died after rescuing a stranger who was standing on the train tracks.

The stranger survived the collision with a train on Monday and is now in critical condition in the hospital.

But the hero, Silicon Valley marketer Philip Scholz, 35, died on the tracks, reported US paper The San Jose Mercury Express.

The unnamed victim apparently did not want to leave the tracks at the Santa Clara Caltrain station in California.

Mr Scholz was on his way home from work. While waiting on the raised platform, he saw a man on the tracks.

He dropped his backpack, lay down on his stomach and reached for the stranger on the tracks.

"As the train approached, the person did want to get out of the way, but between him and Phil, something happened and they were hit," said his wife Emily.

ACT OF HEROISM

She learnt of her husband's gruesome death and his act of heroism from San Mateo County's Sheriff's deputies who knocked on her door on Monday night.

Based on surveillance footage, Mr Scholz was looking at the man on the tracks, maybe even talking to him before he made his last-ditch effort to pull the stranger to safety.

"It appears Mr Scholz was attempting to help the surviving victim, based on preliminary information," said Caltrain spokesman Christine Dunn.

The express train did not stop and ploughed into the two men.

Mrs Scholz said she is not concerned with what investigators find out about why the man was on the tracks.

"It doesn't matter at this point. I just want people to know that he wasn't doing something stupid, or that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said.

"He was doing the right thing when it happened."


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