The warning signals were already active.

It was May 22, 2019, in Aurora, Illinois. A 72-year-old man was inside his sport utility vehicle, stopped on railroad tracks at a crossing. The SUV had come to rest where no vehicle should remain.

A train was approaching.

Lewis A. Medina saw the situation.

He was 23 years old and working as a forklift operator. He was not assigned to the scene. He was not part of a response crew. He was close enough to understand that the crossing had become dangerous and that the driver was not getting himself out.

Medina called 911.

The CEO of BlackRock says a new technology will be 100 times bigger than Bitcoin.

Yet he believes it's still "like where the internet was in 1996."

According to our resident tech investing expert Jeff Brown…

This technology is set to put quadrillions within reach of everyday investors.

Click here to see the full details because you don't need to live in Silicon
Valley or Manhattan to take part…

All you need is $2 to get started.

Then he ran toward the SUV.

The driver was dazed. He was still seated inside the vehicle with his seat belt fastened. The train continued closing the distance.

Medina reached the driver’s side door.

He opened it.

That did not solve the problem by itself. The man inside still had to be released and moved, and he was not moving with the urgency the situation required.

Medina unbuckled the seat belt.

Then he pulled the man from the driver’s seat.

The timing was narrow. Once a train is moving toward a crossing, the stopping distance belongs to the train, not to the person on the tracks. There was no useful assumption that the train would halt in time.

Medina dragged the man away from the SUV.

About six seconds later, the train struck the vehicle.

The impact destroyed the SUV.

The driver was clear.

Medina was clear.

The crossing returned to what it had been before the emergency, but only after the vehicle was gone and the train had passed through.

The action itself was simple to describe.

Call 911. Run to the vehicle. Open the door. Release the belt. Pull the man out. Move him away.

The timing was not simple.

Six seconds is not much room for a second plan.

Medina used the first one.

Lewis A. Medina saw an SUV stopped on railroad tracks with a train approaching, called 911, ran to the vehicle, opened the driver’s side door, unbuckled the dazed driver, pulled him out, and dragged him clear about six seconds before the train struck the SUV.

That is what he did.

It is worth noticing because the window for action was almost closed. The train was already approaching, the driver was still inside, and the seat belt remained fastened.

Medina did not wait for the crossing to resolve itself.

He entered the narrow space between alarm and impact.

A man was sitting in an SUV on railroad tracks. A train was coming. Medina got him out before it arrived.

That changed what happened next.

If you saw a vehicle stuck on tracks with the warning signals already active, would you run toward it or stay clear of the crossing?