Old Orchard Beach Article

Young Man Performs Heroic Feet, Helps Saves a Life

Old Orchard Beach, ME- Every morning 17-year-old James Laboke wakes up at 5 a.m. and walks four miles to his job at Eezy Breezy Restaurant.  But, this morning Laboke’s walk was quite different than any other days.

At slightly before 6 a.m. Laboke witnessed a car stuck on the tracks of the Downeaster train with an unconscious man in it.  The train, which travels from Portalnd to Boston, leaves Portland at 5:55 a.m., and makes a stop in Old Orchard Beach at 6:10 a.m. 

The man was 80-year-old Francois Truffaut, a tourist from Quebec City, Canada who has been visiting the town ever since he was a child.  With the engine stalled and the doors locked Laboke had to act quickly.  Laboke, who does not own a cell phone, promptly ran the 100 yards to the town police station, arriving exactly at 6 a.m. the report what he had seen.

Shortly after Janet Paradiso, a captain on the town’s police force, received the call on the radio and sped over to the tracks arriving at 6:05 a.m. With little time left, and the sound of the train’s whistle signaling it’s impending arrival Paradiso had to hurry. “I knew there was no time.  I had to do something.”

Thinking quickly Paradiso rammed her cruiser into truffaut’s Cadillac Seville and pushed it from the tracks, a mere thirty seconds later the train passed by. “It was that close,” said Brian Paul, Chief of Police for Old Orchard Beach.

Truffaut, a diabetic, who may have gone into insulin shock as he reached the railroad crossing, was brought to the hospital and listed as being in a stable condition. “I don’t remember a thing.” Truffaut said later at Southern Maine Medical Center.

Laboke, who reported to the Eezy Breezy Restaurant right on time, thought little of his own heroic deed. “I never thought about it.  I just knew I couldn’t let that man get crushed by a train,”  In fact Laboke’s boss Charles Champaigne, owner of the Eezy Breezy Restaurant wasn’t even aware anything had happened until later when a reporter called. Champaigne has been Laboke’s boss for eight months and had nothing but praise to say of Laboke. “It doesn’t surprise me at all.  That young man is one of my most responsible employees.  He’s just a great kid.”