A man was lucky to survive after he clung to the outside of a high-speed train in Austria – it had set off after he hopped off the train at a station to have a cigarette
A man who clung to the outside of a high-speed train miraculously survived after it left the station while he was having a cigarette.
The incident occurred on Saturday on a state-of-the-art Railjet train — which are capable of speeds of 230km/h. It is unknown how fast the vehicle was moving when the man was hanging on for dear life.
The man grabbed onto the outside of the train at Sankt Poelten, west of Vienna, Austria during an opportunistic smoke break. According to Austrian tabloid Heute, the man had taken advantage of being at a station to smoke a cigarette on the platform before the train took off. He than grabbed onto the outside. It comes after a man dies and 9 more rushed to hospital after eating sandwich amid urgent recall.
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An Austrian Railways spokesperson said the man was later brought onboard after the train conducted an emergency stop. The frightened traveller, positioned between two carriages, had banged on the windows to attract attention which resulted in the conductor activating the emergency brake before the train’s crew took the man aboard.
Austrian Railways spokesman Herbert Hofer said: “It is irresponsible, this kind of thing usually ends up with someone dying.
“And you’re not just putting yourself in danger, if you end up under the train there’s rescuers, there’s police, fire service that come.”
The train was traveling from Zurich in Switzerland to the Austrian capital. It left Sankt Poelten on time but arrived in Vienna with a seven-minute delay, Mr Hofer added.
Quoting a passenger onboard, Austrian tabloid Heute reported the man jumped into the space between two carriages after the train set off from Sankt Poelten. According to the commuter, the authorities were far from impressed with the man after they rescued him from the outside of the train.
“The conductor really had a very big go at him,” the passenger told Heute. According to Heute, police led a 24-year-old man away after the train arrived in Vienna’s Meidling station.
Unfortunately, the incident is not an isolated one. In January, a 40-year-old Hungarian man survived after clinging to a German high-speed train for 20 miles. He had also been surprised by its departure while trying to finish a cigarette and found himself in a precarious situation.
The passenger had boarded the ICE train in Munich without a valid ticket and was hoping to have a smoke break in the station at Ingolstadt. But, after he took too long, the doors closed and the man proceeded to cling onto cables between two carriages as the train reached speeds of up to 175mph.
The man later told police, after the train was halted, that he had left his luggage on the train and had not wanted to lose it. The wayward passenger was fortune to not sustain injuries from the incident and was later handed over to federal police.