Near Klin (Russia), a teenage train surfer was rescued after falling from a Lastochka train travelling at 160 km/h and suffering multiple fractures, and lay in a ravine for three days.

The schoolboy’s friends who were with him on the train were afraid to report the incident. The boy’s relatives believed either a crime had been committed against him or an accident had occurred. Police opened a criminal investigation into the teen’s disappearance.

Only two days later did the circumstances of the eighth-grader’s disappearance become known. Thanks to the initiative of a reserve officer and his friend, the teen was rescued. The entire district searched for a missing eighth-grader from Biryulyovo.

THE MISSING TRAIN SURFER

Thanks to a local chat, volunteers were able to reconstruct the events and locate the teenager. It turned out that the student was a train surfer. That day, he was on the Leningrad Line railway and fell off a commuter train.

Thanks to two concerned men who went to search the area along the tracks, the teenager was found alive near Klin. He had lain in a ravine for three days with multiple fractures.

The incident occurred on October 3. That evening, Mikhail, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Biryulyovo, failed to return from a walk. According to friends, he was train-surfing and fell from the Lastochka train. His scared friends assumed he had died and agreed not to tell adults.

The teenager’s parents, having failed to wait for his return, raised the alarm. They called hospitals and morgues, filed a missing person’s report with the police, and also posted notices in local chat rooms.

AN UNFOLDING MIRACLE

‘I saw a missing person’s post about a kid on a Telegram channel,’ says reserve officer Alexander Gretsky. ‘I realized he lived nearby; I even thought I’d seen him in the area before. I started looking around to find out where he might be.’

‘Just a couple more hours and that would be it.’

Meanwhile, a video appeared on social media showing a group of minors riding a train. Comments on the video claimed they were kids from Biryulyovo and that one of them, possibly Mikhail, fell near Klin and died. Alexander contacted the commenter, who wrote under the nickname Akhmet.

HIS FRIEND WAS AFRAID

‘I wrote to him, and he replied that he knew how it all happened. He refused to meet me; as far as I could tell, he was just afraid.’

Alexander recounts. ‘The youngster told me he found the video on mutual friends’ social media.

Alexander Ipatov and Alexander Gretsky

There was also a post there: ‘We’re flying at 160 km/h. Misha was standing on the interstice (between the train cars).

A minute later, the guy on the left yells at me that Misha’s gone. I look: he’s gone. Eight minutes later, we rolled into Klin.’ But by that time, the people involved in the conversation had deleted their accounts.’

As Gretsky says, he decided to test this version and, together with his comrade Alexander Ipatov, went to comb the Solnechnogorsk-Klin section.

‘Taxi drivers at the train station told us that Lastochka trains don’t stop at every station. We started calculating the approximate speed to figure out where to start looking. The commuter train takes 15 minutes from Podsolnechnaya to Klin.

THE SEARCH BEGINS

Since it was advertised that they entered Klin in eight minutes, we figured we should start searching halfway,’ Alexander continues.

For six hours, the friends walked along the tracks, trying to find Misha. By the seventh hour, they were about to give up.

‘I was trying to get the car across, meaning I’d walk, then to the car, get it across, and then continue on foot, while my friend searched the whole time.

Thickets of hogweed and the occasional marshy terrain made the journey difficult. Besides, Sasha had to go to work in the morning. But I said, ‘Let’s walk one more stretch, ease our conscience, and then we’ll go,’ Gretsky recalls.

A FAINT GROAN

At the very last moment, Gretsky heard a faint groan: ‘I didn’t understand anything at first. I thought it was some kind of animal. And then the same voice: ‘Mom.’ I ran there.’

Gretsky and Ipatov found Misha: according to them, the teenager was discovered ‘in shorts and a T-shirt, frozen solid, with multiple fractures.’

The schoolboy had been lying for three days, 500 meters from Streglovo station.

A MARVEL

‘As the doctors explained, in a state of severe hypothermia, the body, trying to conserve heat, can create the illusion of overheating, which can cause a person to undress. I wrapped him in a jacket and a sweater around his legs. He asked for food and drink.

It was 3:50 AM. We sang songs together, I rubbed him, told him how we would relax later, and promised to take him to a restaurant. We had to keep him awake. But he apparently warmed up, relaxed, and calmed down, and his eyes began to close. My friend ran to meet the ambulance.’

AMBULANCE

Soon, police, paramedics, and two volunteers arrived on the scene; it turned out they were also searching for the teenager. They all carried Misha to the ambulance and took him to the hospital.

‘During the day, ten people would have walked this distance in an hour and a half. I think he was visible even from train windows,’ says Alexander Gretsky.

Misha is currently in serious but stable condition. His life has been saved.

A family friend shared his condition in a chat where the search for Misha was being discussed: ‘He has a broken hip, broken fingers, a broken radius and collarbone, and a stitched lip. He was transferred from the regional hospital to the Roshal Clinic. He’s in intensive care now, but he recognized his mother. The doctors said a couple more hours and that’s it… The recovery process will be long.’ You can and should share this story on social media: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

BE A SURVIVOR ~ THE SWEETHEARTS OF DEATH  Michael Walsh: Veterans of the Waffen SS, Foreign Legion, British Parachute Regiment, Congo Crisis and African conflicts include legends like Colonel Mike Hoare, Black Jack Schramme, Colonel Bob Denard, and Major Siegfried Müller. French Legionnaire Roger Faulques and ex-Hitler Youth Rolf Steiner. Updated and fully illustrated 28 stories of legends. https://www.lulu.com/shop/michael-walsh/the-sweethearts-of-death/paperback/product-95628g9.html?page=1&pageSize=4