T. Richard Gillihan saved Edward de la Torre and Stephen S. Castro, and died attempting to save Francisco C. Pacheco, from being killed by a train, Encinitas, California, December 23, 1955. De la Torre, 53, Castro, 29, and Pacheco, 30, were working near a curve in a track on which an overdue train was approaching at a speed of 85 m.p.h. Because of noise from the gasoline-powered tampers used by the men, warning blasts from the approaching train were heard only by one man working farther down the track. The man blew his warning whistle and waved his arms as the train, which until then had been obscured by a 10-foot bank, rounded the curve at undiminished speed, and the engineer sounded another warning. Gillihan, 38, railroad section foreman, who was standing near a siding track, saw the locomotive when it was 300 feet from de la Torre, Castro, and Pacheco, none of whom saw the train. His shouts unheard by the men, Gillihan ran 11 feet to beside one rail of the main track, where he grasped de la Torre with one hand and Castro with the other, pulling both men backward from the path of the train. He then lunged onto the track and grasped Pacheco, his momentum carrying both men to near the opposite rail. The train struck and instantly killed both men. The engineer applied brakes at impact and stopped the train. De la Torre and Castro were uninjured. 43717-4070
43717 – 4070
43717-4070