A man from Alberta who passed out on some railway tracks Sunday night and was subsequently run over by a nearly 9,000-ton freight train miraculously survived the incident and was able to walk away without major injury, Canada's QMI Agency reports.
The 20-year-old man, who has not been named by authorities, found his way to the tracks after leaving a nearby campsite, the paper reported. With beer in hand, the inebriated man passed out between the rails for an unknown period of time before the conductor of an oncoming train spotted him and tried to avoid a collision by blasting the horn and hitting the emergency brakes.
Emergency responders feared for the worst, but were shocked when they found the man unhurt on the tracks after being passed over by 26 railway cars.
"When they reached him, they thought he was deceased -- but one of them touched him, and he woke up," Sgt. Dave Dubnyk of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told QMI Agency.
Dubyk told CBC News that as soon as the man was surrounded by emergency personnel, "he got up, grabbed his beer, and was on his way." He said authorities have seen many instances of people losing limbs or their lives after ending up on tracks, but nothing like this.
"He's of fairly slight stature and the train went completely over top of him," Dubnyk told the Calgary Herald. "Amazingly, I don’t know how you wouldn’t wake up even being that passed out drunk, how you wouldn’t wake up from that train rumbling over top of you with the brakes screeching."
According to QMI Agency, after the man got up walked away, authorities used dogs to track him back to his campground and arrested him. They say he'll likely be charged with public intoxication.