A man survived after clinging to the outside of a high-speed train in Austria on Saturday, reportedly after it left while he was having a cigarette break.
The man, who was not identified, grabbed onto the outside of the train as it was leaving the station in Sankt Poelten, west of Vienna, railways spokesman Herbert Hofer told AFP.
“It is irresponsible, this kind of thing usually ends up with someone dying,” he said. “And you’re not just putting yourself in danger, if you end up under the train, there’s rescuers, there’s police, fire service that come.”
Hofer said the passenger was later taken on board when the train performed an emergency stop.
The railjet train was on its way from Zurich, Switzerland, to the Austrian capital and left Sankt Poelten on time but arrived in Vienna with a 7-minute delay, Hofer said.
Citing a passenger onboard, Austrian tabloid Heute said the man jumped into the space between two carriages after the train began to set off from a planned stop in Sankt Poelten.
The man had taken advantage of being at a station to smoke a cigarette on the platform, according to Heute. After jumping on the train, he soon began to bang on windows to attract attention, Heute said, resulting in the train’s conductor activating the emergency brake before the train crew took the man aboard.
“The conductor really had a very big go at him,” the passenger told Heute.
The man is a 24-year-old Algerian and was led away by police after the train arrived in Vienna’s Meidling station, Heute reported.
Hofer said he could not comment on the man’s background ahead of further investigations.
Similarly, in January, a 40-year-old Hungarian man survived clinging to a German high-speed train for 20 miles, after it left while he was smoking a cigarette. The man told police he had left his luggage on the train during his cigarette break and did not want to be parted from it, CBS News partner BBC reported.
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