Larry B. Pulai saw the girl from the lead locomotive.
It was May 20, 1987, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Pulai was working as a head end trainman aboard a freight train when he noticed a 20-month-old girl standing between the rails ahead.
The train was about 500 feet away.
It was moving at roughly 15 miles per hour.
Pulai was 26 years old. From inside the locomotive, he could see the problem clearly. The child was too young to understand where she was standing or what was moving toward her.
The crew began slowing the train.
NVIDIA’s CEO just warned that China will win the AI race… and Trump has taken a shocking measure to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Jeff Brown says it could soon unleash $100 trillion into the U.S. economy… And light a fire under one little-known stock.
Pulai did not remain inside to see whether it would stop in time.
He left the locomotive and jumped to the ground.
The train was still moving beside him.
Pulai began running alongside it as it slowed. He had to cover the distance between the locomotive and the child before the front of the train reached her.
Running beside a freight train is not the same as running beside an ordinary vehicle. The size changes the space around it. The rails limit where a person can safely move. The train keeps advancing even while it loses speed.
Pulai kept running.
He passed the locomotive.
Then he moved in front of it.
The girl was still between the rails.
Pulai did not slow down when he reached her. He grabbed her while continuing forward, lifted her against his body, and ran off the track.
Within seconds, the front of the freight train passed the place where they had been.
The girl was safe.
The sequence was brief enough to describe in a few lines. A child stood on the tracks. A train approached. A man jumped down, ran past the locomotive, and carried her away.
But each part depended on the one before it.
Pulai first had to see her early enough to understand the danger. Then he had to decide that slowing the train might not be enough. He had to leave the relative safety of the locomotive, reach the ground without losing his footing, and run beside a machine that was still moving.
Then he had to pass it.
Only after doing all of that could he reach the child.
There was no pause at the final moment. Pulai did not stop beside her and attempt to guide her away. She was 20 months old. There was no time to explain.
He grabbed her and kept moving.
The train passed seconds later.
What He Did And Why It Is Worth Noticing
Larry B. Pulai saw a toddler standing between railroad tracks about 500 feet ahead of his freight train, jumped from the locomotive, ran alongside it, passed it, moved in front of it, grabbed the child without stopping, and carried her off the track.
That is what he did.
It is worth noticing because Pulai did not rely on the train slowing quickly enough. He treated the remaining distance as something he had to close himself.
The train was already moving toward the child.
He ran faster than it long enough to reach her first.
A toddler stood between the rails. Pulai left the locomotive, passed the train on foot, and carried her clear seconds before it arrived.
That changed what happened next.
If you saw someone on the tracks ahead and did not know whether the train could stop in time, would you jump down and run?