The wounded car wreck victim sat on the train track unable to move. The train blasted its whistle and chugged straight for him. A passerby hurried down a hill and dragged the man to safety just before the locomotive slammed into the wrecked car.
Sounds like something out of a movie.
But it was a reality in Madison County at 7:38 a.m. Oct. 22 off Hwy. 72 in a curve just past the Carlton Grocery about .2 miles west of Lexington Road.
Norb Krzak, 49, Loganville, who works as the job site manager of Alcovy Fence Company, was on his way to Elberton to put up a fence, when he saw a silver 1999 Nissan Altima fly across the road and down an embankment.
Krzak pulled over in his Toyota Tundra.
“I went down the railroad embankment,” said Krzak. “It was a silver car on the other side of the track that was kind of still on the track. And both of the occupants were ejected.”
Krzak called 9-1-1 for help. And the tape of that 15-minute call between Krzak and Madison County dispatcher Rita Fulcher is riveting, with the sound of a frantic Krzak hollering for the victim to get off the track, the train whistle blowing and the eerie squeal of metal on metal as train conductor T.S. Brown slams on brakes.
“When I got down there, I was on the phone with the 9-1-1 operator,” said Krzak. “And I had some different shoes on, so I went back up the embankment and got my boots and came back down. By the time I did, I turned around and looked down the tracks and a train was coming. I saw the light. And I yelled for the one kid to get off the tracks and he didn’t.”
At one minute and 25 seconds into the 9-1-1 call, Krzak tells dispatcher Fulcher, “Let me see if I can get down the embankment.”
At 1:44, he says, “There’s a train coming!”
Then he repeatedly yells: “Get off the track!” to the accident victim.
The 9-1-1 recording includes the victim’s moans and “I’m hurt.”
At 2:18 into the call, Krzak says, “I got him off the track.”
At 2:32, the train passes by, slamming into the wrecked car.
At 2:48, Krzak repeats, “I got him off the track!”
“Bless your heart,” the dispatcher replies. Later, as help is on the way, Fulcher tells Krzak: “You did an excellent job, I want you to know that.”
There are just 67 seconds between the time Krzak tries to get down the embankment and the moment the train blasts through.
“I just yanked him off the track is all I did,” said Krzak. “I was fixing to go to the other side, because the boy was by the car. And by the time I turned around the train had already hit the car. And I was trying to hurry up the embankment, because I was scared the train was going to hit the car towards me, but it didn’t. The kid was just sitting in the middle of the track. I assume he was in shock, because he wasn’t responding to my calls. So I just grabbed him by his arm and pulled him off the track. And the train came. That’s all that really happened … I told my wife I looked stupid, cause I’m trying to climb up this embankment when the train hit the car, cause I was so scared at that time.”
After the accident, one victim was on the north side of the track, the other on the south with the stopped train between them.
Krzak was shaken up as he spoke of the incident two days later.
“I was almost over it and you’re like the third person to call,” he said to The Journal. “And I’m starting to think about it again, being that close to the train and seeing the kids, seeing the one in the middle of the tracks, not knowing what to do, just pulling them off. Thankfully they’re still alive.”
Krzak was concerned about the condition of the two accident victims.
Madison County EMS director Jason Lewis said medical privacy laws prohibit him from releasing the names of the accident victims. He contacted Athens Regional Medical Center Monday and was informed that both of the injured men were initially admitted into intensive care and then transferred out of ICU. He said both suffered serious injuries but that both are expected to make a full recovery.
The State Patrol office in Atlanta identified occupants of the Nissan Altima as Wesley Eric Fleming, 17, Elberton, and Bradley Neal Fleming, 25, Elberton. State patrolman Jim Claxton said Bradley Fleming was the man that Krzak pulled off the track.
“That’s a pretty courageous thing of Mr. Krzak to do,” said Claxton. “I think he should be recognized.”
Claxton said the accident is still under investigation. He noted that since both occupants were ejected, the determination of who was driving the vehicle is still unverified. He said that whether the occupants were wearing seat belts is also still under investigation. And he said he couldn’t offer any information on why the vehicle left the roadway.
The Journal contacted Athens Regional Medical Center corporate communications to inquire if either wreck victim might want to say something about Krzak’s actions, but there was no response as of press time.
Madison County 9-1-1 director David Camp praised the performance of dispatchers Rita Fulcher, who took the call, along with Mollie Smith-Reeves and Irene Jordan, who dispatched emergency crews, while also trying to get in touch with CSX to get the train stopped prior to the collision.
“I was very proud of how they handled the situation,” said Camp. “Rita answered the phone, but the entire team did a great job that day.”
Fulcher, who worked as a deputy for 10 years, said she’s never taken a call like the one Oct. 22.
“My thing was getting help to those people right then,” said Fulcher. “And that was immediate. I was just hoping I was doing all the right things at the right time. And timing was of the essence at that point.”
The emotions of the moment didn’t sink in until after the call, she said.
“It’s fine during the call, but it’s afterwards,” said Fulcher.
The dispatcher said Krzak acted remarkably.
“Norb was a hero,” she said. “I mean most people — and it was a matter of seconds of getting him off the track. But when I heard the train actually blow the whistle and I heard the screeching of the brakes, and I heard the clunk, cause I knew the train had hit the car, because the car was on the track, I was thinking “Oh, my!’ That’s all I could think, “Oh, my! God make everybody OK. And then I was wondering about Norb, you know, because he was really shook up. And by all rights, anybody would be.”
Fulcher said the 9-1-1 office received a call Wednesday from the mother of one of the wreck victims who said doctors told her that her son was a “medical miracle.”
Madison County board of commission chairman Anthony Dove invited Krzak and his family were recognized at the Oct. 27 BOC meeting in the government complex.
“There’s no question, that was a heroic and compassionate act by Norb,” said Dove. “If he hadn’t stopped, there would be a young man who had lost his life. It’s riveting, the circumstances were incredible. And he acted quickly and saved a person’s life. He put himself in harm’s way to save another individual.”
Krzak said he doesn’t feel what he did was particularly noteworthy.
“Everybody’s making a big deal out of this,” he said. “I would like to think that somebody in my shoes would have done the same thing.”
