Half-naked man ran after train for 7 kilometres in in sub-zero temperatures

A 42-year-old Russian man literally ran for his life for seven kilometres in the freezing cold after he accidentally fell off a train in the country’s Far East, wearing only a T-shirt, sweatpants and slippers. ­The man said that he had gone to the train’s vestibule for a smoke.

As he was coming back to his carriage, he missed his door and opened another one to a non-functioning vestibule. He stepped into the dark and then found himself in taiga forest, on the railroad, all alone. The passenger ran after the train for seven kilometres, but couldn’t catch up with it. At the next station the man was given help.



“The 42-year-old man survived by sheer luck,” the Interior Ministry’s local transport department reported on Friday. An investigation into the matter has been launched, and police are trying to ascertain whether what happened was an accident, or whether a train attendant forgot to close the door out of neglect.

The man turned out to be a driver working under a rotation system. “He is feeling fine, has already started working, and has suffered no bodily harm. Certainly, he had been very scared, but got over the shock,” the man’s employer said. The train was travelling from Moscow to Nerungri. The average winter temperatures in the area measure around -30°C.