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| We're looking for an American who works for Moderna and likes the tipple.... | |
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Funnily enough, I was going to post this story under the title "Give the man a medal...."
For those of you who aren't fluent in German, here's a translation:
A man in his mid-thirties met with work colleagues to celebrate in a restaurant in Turtmann VS. As the US-American made his way home on foot around midnight (it's a 3-hour walk from Turtmann to Visp), he searched in vain for the train station, but found the tracks and followed them in the direction of Visp.
Finally, an express train roared over the tracks at 120 km/h. According to the local newspaper, the train driver recognized that a male person had crossed the tracks immediately in front of the train and feared to have hit him. Emergency braking was initiated and the rail control center was informed.
For 45 minutes, nothing worked on the affected section of track. SBB employees searched around and behind the train in vain. Finally, the train driver noticed that a door opener had been operated from the outside and that a person must therefore have boarded the train. As it turned out, it had been operated by the – presumed dead - man. He was seated unharmed in second class.
He was found guilty by the Upper Valais public prosecutor's office for "negligent disruption of rail traffic." He received a conditional fine of 30 daily rates of 140 francs each. In addition, he must pay a fine of 1050 francs and 600 francs in procedural costs.
In fact, he surely deserves two medals: one for clear and creative thinking while presumably under the influence (well ok, take a few brownie points off for messing about on the traintracks), and the other for single-handedly managing to come up with a new definition of cheek; although for this medal we need to take a few brownie points off for not sitting in first class (if indeed there was a first-class carriage on the train).