Class excercise: 17 year old waiter becomes local hero

Today started off like any normal day would for 17-year-old James Laboke.  He woke up at 5 a.m., and took his four mile walk to the Eezy Breezy Restaurant where he has a job as a waiter in Old Orchard Spring, Maine.

However, just an hour later, James Laboke would be the savior of 80-year-old Francois Truffaut.

Truffaut is a Canadian tourist who has been coming to Old Orchard Spring ever since he was a child.  While he was driving this morning he suddenly lost consciousness, and his car became stuck on train tracks that come through the small tourist community.  According to the police report Truffaut is a diabetic, and he most likely suffered from insulin shock.  

“I don’t remember a thing,” Truffaut later said at the hospital.

While walking to work Laboke noticed the Canadian-native unconscious in his car, and after pounding on the car door Truffaut still remained unresponsive.  Laboke ran to the police station, where Captain Janet Paradiso was called onto the scene and rammed the car off the train tracks.

The train that comes through Old Orchard Spring arrives to the station around 6:10 a.m.  When Laboke found the car on the tracks, it was already six on the dot.  There was no time to think.

“I never thought about,” Laboke said.  “I just knew I couldn’t let that man get crushed by a train.”

 It took another five minutes for Paradiso to arrive at the tracks.  Just 30 seconds after she rammed the car, the train came through.

“I knew there was no time,” Captain Paradiso said.  “I had to do something.”

Truffaut remained unharmed from the situation and is in stable condition at the hospital.