(The Register-Mail published the following story by Tammy Bould on its website on August 5. Jerome Shupe is a retired member of BLE Division 644 in Galesburg, Ill.)
GALESBURG, Ill. — At about 8 a.m. Sunday, Jon Slover sat in his 1994 two-door Buick, confused, and in the path of a 7,000- to 8,000-ton freight train.
Slover, 22, was on his way to report for National Guard duty Sunday when he apparently dozed off. His car crashed through a crossing gate on Main Street, just east of Maple Avenue, and stopped on the train tracks.
A Burlington Northern Santa Fe train, coming from Alliance, Texas, and headed for Willow Spring, rolled at 30 mph toward the broad side of Slover’s Buick.
Slover didn’t see the train, but Jerome Shupe did. Shupe, 73, of Galesburg had been driving behind Slover and saw the crash and the oncoming train.
Shupe got out of his vehicle and ran to the Buick. There, he saw Slover.
“He was conscious, but seemed to be in shock,” Shupe said. The car’s door was locked, but the window was part way down.
“I reached in and shook him. I got his attention and he got the door open. He was completely disoriented.”
Slover remembers seeing a man outside his car.
“He grabbed me and said ‘get out, there’s a train coming,’ ” Slover said. “I wasn’t even thinking about a train.”
Shupe got Slover out of the car and was moving him to safety, when Slover turned and went back to the car for his billfold. Slover says he must have been in shock.
“He said, ‘no, there’s a train coming.'” But the disoriented Slover got his billfold anyway.
Seeing the car on the tracks, the train’s engineer tried an emergency stop. Shupe, a retired engineer, estimated the engineer slowed the train to 10 or 15 mph before slamming into the passenger side of Slover’s car.
The two men were clear of the tracks just seconds before the train shoved Slover’s car 45-50 feet down the tracks. Shupe estimated they made it to safety 10 seconds before the collision. They “watched the car pushed down the tracks,” Slover said. He remembers the crashing sound.
The car’s passenger side was pushed in, but it could have been worse.
The train was a high priority train, Steve Forsberg, a spokesman for the BNSF said. It can travel up to 70 mph, but, while in Galesburg, the maximum speed allowed is 30 mph.
“I’m glad he had the courage to do it,” Slover said of Shupe’s rescue. “I thank God he came up and told me to get out. I’ll never forget it. I’m sure, at the very least, I would have been hurt pretty bad.”
Slover, of Burlington, Iowa, formerly of Oquawka, was so shaken up, he went on to the National Guard building for duty. His commanding officer sent him home after hearing his story.
After gaining perspective, Slover wanted to thank the man who risked his safety to help him.
Shupe said his own safety wasn’t a concern at the time.
“I didn’t stop to think,” he said. “I think when you see a problem you do your best to correct it. You just do what you can. I’m 73 years old. If I can save a young man and I get killed, it would not be a big sacrifice. I’ve lived a good life.”