uncompleted Amtrak story

Two Old Orchard Beach locals are heroes after saving an 80-year-old Quebec tourist from a speeding train a mere 30-seconds before the Amtrak Downeaster crossed where his car was stuck on the tracks.

James Laboke, 17, was on his daily 4-mile walk to his waitering job at the Eezy Breezy restaurant on East Grand Street when he spotted a 1987 pink Cadillac Seville on the train tracks. The man inside was elderly Francois Truffaut, who had falling unconscious. The idling car was locked and Laboke pounded on the windows to try to wake Truffaut. Laboke, who does not own a cell phone, knew time was short, so he quickly ran to the police station 100-meters away, where he alerted the police what had happened.

Janet Paradiso is the captain on the police force and was approximately a mile away when she received the call about the incident. She arrived at the train tracks at about 6:05 a.m. just to hear the approaching trains whistle. Desperate to help, she thought quickly and drove her cruiser into the back of Truffaut’s vehicle, pushing it off the tracks before the Amtrak Downeaster, on its way through from Portland, crossed the location where Truffaut had been only 30-seconds before.

“I knew there was no time. I had to do something,” Paradiso said later that day. Laboke continued on his way to work and punched in on time and made no mention of the incident. It was only until a reporter called the restaurant owner and Laboke’s boss, Charles Champaigne learned about the traumatic experience.

Laboke

Captain police officer Janet Paradiso drove her cruiser into a car that had stalled on the train tracks this morning in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. The driver was Francois Truffaut, a tourist from Quebec City, Canada. James Laboke, 17, was walking to work at the Eezy Breezy restaurant when he saw the 1987 pink Cadillac Seville idling on the tracks at 6 a.m. Laboke ran to the nearby police station after trying to open the locked vehicle to wake the unconscious man. Paradiso received the call and drove to the railroad crossing just in time to hear the trains whistle, and slammed her car into Truffaut’s vehicle, pushing it off the tracks. The Amtrak Downeaster on its way from Portland, Maine, passed the location about 30-seconds later. Laboke reported to work at time and made no mention of the traumatic incident, the owner of the restaurant said that “he’s just a great kid.”