Two men in Florida barely escaped with their lives last weekend after a their Honda Accord became stuck on a set of train tracks. The crash happened in the early hours of Sunday morning in downtown Orlando, FL. The crash was filmed by Aaron Fechter, a well-known Orlando tinkerer who invented the boardwalk mainstay game Whac-A-Mole. When he heard the tale-tell thunk of a car getting stuck on the tracks Fechter grabbed his camera. He told the Orlando Sentinel he's seen about six cars meet their end on the tracks in the last 20 years.
"I looked outside, and I saw two guys in the car trying to get the car off the tracks, and a whole lot of people gathering around and helping them," Fechter told the Sentinel. "I heard the train whistle blowing, and I knew what was going to happen." He hit record just before the freight train barreled into a white Honda Accord.
The men made it out of the Honda before the train crushed it. The CSX freight train driver told police the car was too close for him to stop in time. They somehow managed to move the car off the tracks and left in another vehicle before police arrived. Police have identified one of the men, but so far no charges have been filed. Fechter told the paper the train crossing is confusing and drivers can easily turn directly on to the train tracks when they mean to turn down a street near the tracks. The Florida Department of Transportation is investigating whether the layout of the crossing can be improved.
Fechter is a minor celebrity in Orlando who only created the popular Whac-a-mole game, in which players use large mallets to strike faux rodents on the head as they pop out of holes, but also an animatronic band which he dubbed Rock-afire Explosion. An ironic name, considering an explosion at Fechter's workshop in 2013 left animatronic body parts smoldering on Orlando's streets.
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"I looked outside, and I saw two guys in the car trying to get the car off the tracks, and a whole lot of people gathering around and helping them," Fechter told the Sentinel. "I heard the train whistle blowing, and I knew what was going to happen." He hit record just before the freight train barreled into a white Honda Accord.
The men made it out of the Honda before the train crushed it. The CSX freight train driver told police the car was too close for him to stop in time. They somehow managed to move the car off the tracks and left in another vehicle before police arrived. Police have identified one of the men, but so far no charges have been filed. Fechter told the paper the train crossing is confusing and drivers can easily turn directly on to the train tracks when they mean to turn down a street near the tracks. The Florida Department of Transportation is investigating whether the layout of the crossing can be improved.
Fechter is a minor celebrity in Orlando who only created the popular Whac-a-mole game, in which players use large mallets to strike faux rodents on the head as they pop out of holes, but also an animatronic band which he dubbed Rock-afire Explosion. An ironic name, considering an explosion at Fechter's workshop in 2013 left animatronic body parts smoldering on Orlando's streets.
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