Utah highway patrol pulls man out of car 1 second before train hits.

[Jbub]

An accident on the freeway sent this car up the road bed onto the tracks. The accident knocked the driver unconcious. Luckily for him the patrolman saw the car on the tracks and the train coming and raced up to check. The train (commuter) engineer noticed something on the tracks and went into emergency 21 seconds before impact. It was going 79mph at application and around 30 at impact. Both the patrolman and driver are lucky to be alive, it seriously looks like something out of a movie.

[Maletrain]

WOW!!! I hope that car didn't have any unconscious passengers!

[jagged ben]

Wow indeed. 

[davefoxx]

Kudos to the police officer AND to the engineer.  Amazingly, the engineer spotted something on the tracks in the dark from what must have been quite a distance.  Good eye, because any delay in that application of the brake would have resulted in the train arriving in less than twenty-one seconds, and the outcome could have been much different.  Wow.

DFF

[C855B]

... the engineer spotted something on the tracks in the dark from what must have been quite a distance. ...

Yes, that's another incredible and heroic part of the story - he or she saw it well over a half-mile away, factoring speed and reaction time. Professionalism and dedication at their finest from both, exactly when it was needed.

[peteski]

Not to take away from the engineer, the vehicle clearly has its taillights on, and its front appears to be facing the oncoming train.  So the front of the vehicle likely had its headlights on (or at least the parking lights).  If the headlights were on then a watchful engineer would have seen it some distance away.

The new story I heard reporting on this mentioned that the driver had some sort of medical emergency and drove off the road, onto the embankment and ended up on the track.

[MK]

The new story I heard reporting on this mentioned that the driver had some sort of medical emergency and drove off the road, onto the embankment and ended up on the track.

This.  As I heard it described from two different news organizations.

[Jbub]

When I posted this, it was being reported as an accident but later was clarified as a medical incident. There were some other factors that played into this being non fatal. Staffing was short that morning causing the trains to run late. If that particular train had been on time, the trooper would not have been there to pull the guy out as he'd been on the tracks for just a few minutes.