BLUNT, S.D. (AP) - A teenage boy from central South Dakota who was trapped after the truck he was driving crashed into a train is alive thanks to four men.
The 16-year-old was driving a truck hauling two semitrailers full of wheat Thursday near Blunt when he slammed into the side of a Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern Railroad train, the Pierre Capital Journal reported.
The teenager was rescued by Chris Schafer, a former firefighter and nearby driver; two railroad engineers who were on the train; and a Blunt firefighter, who wished to remain anonymous.
Blunt Rural Fire Department received a call about the crash, but the two locomotives on the north side of the highway blocked the town from the crash scene. Firefighters were forced to find an improvised route by using a farmer’s driveway and driving across a field to get to the scene.
Until then, Schafer and the two railroad engineers tried to put out the fire and pull the teenager out. The engineers had fire extinguishers that Schafer says didn’t put out the fire entirely but made a big difference.
“It was just, I had to get there,” Schafer said. “For one thing, to put the fire out. And the second priority was to get the kid out.”
A firefighter managed to get to the scene by going between train cars to help the other three get the teen out of the car. The wheat that filled the cab nearly had buried the boy.
“The door miraculously opened up and grain poured out and we could pull him right out of there,” Schafer said. “Everything, the timing, was perfect. If we had been (driving) a minute ahead or a minute behind, that window of opportunity would have been gone.”
Schafer said the cab was engulfed in fire within minutes of pulling the teenager out.
Now a tax equalization director for Hamlin County, Schafer was a firefighter for 25 years and an emergency medical technician for 12 years.
The teenager is recovering from critical injuries in a Sioux Falls hospital.
Highway Patrol officials said charges are pending against the teenager.
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Information from: Pierre Capital Journal, https://www.capjournal.com
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