It was like a scene out of silent movie, a truck stuck on the railroad tracks and a train barreling down the line, but some quick thinking saved a life last night.
13 abc was on the scene in the village of Portage soon after a truck was split in half by a train.
Warning lights weren't enough to keep an allied moving truck from a getting wedged in a bad situation.
One witness to the accident says, "My wife and I were sitting on the porch, and we saw the semi go by and heard him get stuck on the tracks."
Bud Harvey lives a block from the train crossing. He rushed to the scene to help the frantic driver.
"I backed my pickup up behind his semi to see if I could help push while he spun his wheels, but it was no good."
Then the scary part.
"We looked down the tracks and saw that light coming, and we knew it was all over."
Still Harvey didn't give up.
"I took his flashlight and went down the tracks to try and slow the train down, but they couldn't stop in time."
At the point of impact, you can see the train literally split the truck in two tossing someone's furniture and boxes everywhere.
Lt. Sue Gavron, Central Joint Fire district, says, "It's split open on the other side there, and you can see some of the belongings strewn on the ground. The cab is on the other side with more belongings and the cross bucks are down. In the past 3 or 4 years there have been several accidents here, the cross bucks just went up this year, and we've had a couple of fatalities here and a couple of near fatal, this was one of the lucky ones.
Crews on the scene say the crash could have been a lot worse if the truck were carrying hazardous materials.
