Man Wills Himself to Live After Body Nearly Severed by Train

[RaVen Blackehart]

Truman Duncan should be dead.



Most people don't survive being run over by a train, but Duncan did.

In June 2006, Duncan was working at his job in the rail yards of Cleburne, Texas, when he slipped and fell onto the tracks while riding on the front of a train car that was moving toward a repair dock.

"I just fell," the 38-year-old said. "At that point I started running backwards, you know, obviously fast as I could, and I tried to outrun it. I didn't make it."

Duncan was pulled under the rail car, its wheels grinding steadily underneath.

"It just felt like a monster," he said. "I couldn't get away from it, like it was just pulling me in, and I'm pushing away … [and] I was cut in two."

By the time the rail car came to a stop, Duncan had been dragged 75 feet. His lower body, was still entangled in the wheels of the train, and he was cut nearly in half at the waist, with one leg attached by a single muscle. "The pain was real severe, and then it just kinda like it wasn't there," Duncan said. "I think something else kicks in and then you try to do things necessary to stay alive."

Duncan knew he had to fight to stay alive.

"I knew if I just lay there and lay there and lay there, eventually I was gonna die," he said. "But if I stayed awake, made sure I got my help there then was a possibility that I would live and that's when I realized that I might have my phone on my hip."

Duncan was able to reach his cell phone and call 911.

As ambulances and medics raced to the rail yard, he made one more call -- to his family.

"I called and talked to them. And started getting upset, and then that's when I just kinda closed the phone and put my phone over to the side and started trying to survive," he said.

more at link.....

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=6708240&page=1

[malq]

That's horrifying,. I used to have nightmares of being run over and dragged by a train. All the meat gone off my heels as it thundered down the track dragging me.
This guy really lived it. How did he not bleed to death in 10 seconds after being severed?

[Kitty]

That's horrifying,. I used to have nightmares of being run over and dragged by a train. All the meat gone off my heels as it thundered down the track dragging me.
This guy really lived it. How did he not bleed to death in 10 seconds after being severed?

I'm just guessing.. but maybe the weight of the train acted like a tourniquet?

[malq]

I'm just guessing.. but maybe the weight of the train acted like a tourniquet?

I was wondering that too Kitty. In severing situations that actually grind it in half... I believe a certain amount of cauterization can take place. Maybe that saved him. I'm guessing too.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Despite losing more than half the blood in his body, Duncan was still alive when the helicopter took off for Texas Health Hospital in Fort Worth, 62 minutes after the accident. He was rushed to the trauma unit, where Dr. David Smith took stock of Duncan's staggering injuries.

"He was torn down to just literally one cell layer of tissue between his abdominal contents, his intestines and the outside world," Smith said.

Duncan endured 23 surgeries over the next six weeks, astonishing doctors with not only his physical strength but his mental courage.
[...]
Duncan's left leg was amputated at the hip, and the right leg was amputated above the knee. He hopes to soon explore getting prosthetic limbs

Boy, that is some mental strength. I hope I never have to find out if I have it.