A viral video surfaced on social media showing a man in Kerala‘s Kannur district narrowly escaping from an oncoming train. The footage shows the man lying flat on the tracks as a train sped over him near Kannur. He remained crouched without lifting his head until the train passed, after which he got up and walked away unharmed.
The incident occurred around 5 pm on Monday between Kannur and Chirakkal railway stations when the Mangalore-Thiruvananthapuram train passed through the area, news agency PTI reported.
According to South First, Sreejith, a local resident who witnessed the incident, recorded the footage and immediately alerted the Railway Police. After the video went viral on social media, railway police identified the man as 56-year-old Pavithran, who was described as having a “small stature.”
A railway police official confirmed that Pavithran’s statement had been recorded. Pavithran told the police that he had been talking on his phone and didn’t notice the train approaching. When he realized the danger, there was no time to escape, so he quickly lay down on the track to avoid a fatal collision.
“We were also surprised to see the video. He survived because of his small physical stature,” the police official told PTI.
As the video spread, rumours began circulating that a drunk person had been lying on the tracks and later walked away. “I was not drunk; I lay on the tracks to save my life,” Pavithran clarified. He works as a cleaner for a school vehicle and admitted he was “shaken by the incident.”
“I still haven’t recovered from the fear,” he added.
Similar incident in Bihar
A major accident was narrowly avoided at a railway station in Bihar’s Samastipur when a man slipped and fell onto the tracks while attempting to board a moving train. The incident was captured in a viral video, NDTV reported on December 21.
HT cannot independently verify this information.
In the video, the train leaves the platform while a voice warns others to stay away from the tracks. As the train moves away, the man was seen lying next to the platform wall with minimal injuries.
After spotting the man, a few bystanders quickly helped lift him from the tracks. After covering a short distance, the train stopped, and the passenger boarded it and continued his journey.