By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A car torn in two by a train at a Noble Park level crossing, its driver Michael Bojic, 23, emerged relatively unscathed after being cut out of the mangled wreck which was dragged 200 metres down the track.
Sharon Harris, who was first to come to the man’s aid, understandably has vivid memories of that surreal scene back on a Monday morning, 4 June 1984.
Ms Harris – who was described as a Dandenong “housewife” by the Journal at the time – had been knitting with a friend aboard the city-bound train when it struck the car at the Corrigan Road crossing.
The crossing in those days was without boom gates.
“I felt a bump and looked out the window. There was car everywhere.”
She jumped from the train, tending to the trapped driver in “just a little bit of car” as hundreds of people looked on.
“People said ‘get out’ because the car had started to catch fire but I wouldn’t leave him.
“I saw him move and tried to keep him alert, to keep him conscious.”
The Journal reported in its front page splash of the incident that Ms Harris prayed for the man and tried to release his tension by holding his head.
“I prayed to God for the strength to hold him, and I prayed to God for Him to help the young man,” she told the Journal at the time.
“It was God who gave me the strength to do what I did.”
Ms Harris reveals now that an emergency officer said they would not be able to save Mr Bojic’s legs.
He was incredibly proved wrong.
“The pieces of car were wrapped around his legs,” Ms Harris said.
“When they got him out of the car, his legs were not damaged at all. They couldn’t believe it.”
Mr Bojic, when interviewed in hospital by the Journal, said he’d been “out of action” for two weeks due to an earlier car crash.
Sporting fractured ribs and a sore shoulder and head, he said: “I was driving back from seeing the company doctor to get an all-clear to return to work when the train accident happened.
“The doctor passed me as fit to return to work on light duties.”
Ms Harris said she later brought flowers to Mr Bojic in hospital.
She was surprised to hear him “bragging” that it was the second time he had been struck by a train.
The Journal soon after did a follow-up story, Ms Harris said, about the man’s failure to say thank you to his rescuer.
Twenty-one years down the track, there are plans to grade separate Corrigan Road’s level crossing which should eventually avoid a repeat of such horrific accidents.
