(The Ledger posted the following story by John Chambliss on its website on August 29.)
BARTOW, Fla. — A CSX train toppled George Robert Williams and then ran directly over him Wednesday night. But the Bartow man survived and was able to crawl out from beneath a freight car after the train stopped.
Williams, 47, was recovering in Lakeland Regional Medical Center on Thursday night from face, arm and leg injuries from a fall onto the tracks, police said.
He was expected to be released Thursday night or early today.
“I just don’t know how he could survive that,” said CSX spokesman Dan Murphy. “That’s incredible.”
“He’s extremely lucky,” said Bartow Police Chief Eric Sandvik. “He got knocked under the train, and he came crawling out.”
Williams, who is deaf, wrote to investigators from his hospital bed that he was using the east Bartow stretch of tracks as a shortcut from a friend’s house to his home on 10th Street.
He was struck by the locomotive and one freight car about 7:15 p.m. just north of Gibbons Street.
The CSX conductor first saw Williams about 500 feet in front of him as the train traveled about 30 mph, police said.
He immediately blew the horn and hit the emergency brake, police said.
Williams never moved and was hit directly in the back, police said.
He landed in the middle of the track between the rails, and the locomotive passed over him before the train stopped and Williams crawled out from underneath the freight car, police said.
Bartow police Detective Jason Griffith said Williams was not crushed because he landed perfectly on the tracks.
It was unclear Thursday night whether Williams, who is 5 feet 7 inches and 160 pounds, was dragged several feet or whether the train passed cleanly over him.
CSX spokesman Dan Murphy estimated the train was traveling less than 10 mph when it hit Williams.
Police said the clearance between the track and the bottom of the train was about 2 feet.
“It was just a matter of inches between his body and part of the train,” said Bartow police Capt. Robert Green.
When the conductor and engineer found Williams after he’d crawled from beneath the train, he was on his back with a bloody face, police said.
Longtime police employees were amazed that Williams survived.
“I was a paramedic for 10 years in Illinois, and I’ve never heard of such a thing,” said Phil McCleary, a Bartow dispatcher for nearly 15 years.