Life’s miseries did not deter couple from risking their safety to avert train accident

Deserted by children and forced to live a hard life did not come in the way of Shanmugaiah, 60, and his wife Vadakithiammal, 49, in preventing a possible train accident near Sengottai in Tenkasi district in the wee hours of Sunday.

Deserted by children and forced to live a hard life did not come in the way of Shanmugaiah, 60, and his wife Vadakithiammal, 49, in preventing a possible train accident near Sengottai in Tenkasi district in the wee hours of Sunday.

A loud thud had woken them up from sleep only a few minutes earlier. The farm workers rushed out of their tin-sheeted hut on the hilly terrain along Sengottai-Punalur railway line carrying a torchlight. They found that a truck had fallen from the ghat road, from a height of 18 metres, on  the railway track between Bhagavathipuram and Aryankavu stations. It was 10 minutes to 1 a.m.

Mr. Shanmugaiah tried to alert a railway man he knew over his mobile phone. But, the call reached someone else. Even before they could think of what else to do, the couple saw an express train fast approaching.

Immediately, they started running towards the train in that pitch dark night to stop it. “I chose to run on the middle of the track so that the driver could anyhow notice me. My wife ran with me along the side of the track with the torch light,” recalled Mr. Shanmugaiah.

The woman attempted to point the light rays right on the face of the loco pilot to draw his attention. “We ran past four (railway electric) posts,” she explained.

As the train came closer, the man jumped aside and they started shoutting at the top of their lungs. The engine and the first coach went past the couple before the train came to a screeching halt.

The couple, who felt bad about the death of the truck driver, were enormously happy that they were able to prevent an accident. At an advanced age, they had run on an unfriendly terrain infested with venomous reptiles and wild boars, said a railway officer.