World

American Teen's Wild Night on Australian Ghan Train

by Mary Richard | June 7, 2009 at 09:34 pm

1479 views | 14 Recommendations | 1 comment

An American visitor to the Australian Outback has experienced the ride of his life and lived to tell of it.

Chad Vance, aged 19, of Alaska, was about to miss the Ghan, their trans-continental train, and clung onto the side as it was pulling out of Port Augusta. There he rode through the night, squeezed into the stairwell, for almost 2 1/2 hours, at speeds of 70 mph (110 km/h).

Terrified and freezing, he filmed his crazy adventure.

The train had gone over 120 miles before a Ghan crew member heard the Alaskan student's cries for help and brought the train to an emergency halt, rescuing Mr Vance from almost certain death.

"Chad is a very lucky guy - when we rescued him his skin was white and his lips were blue," said his rescuer Chad Wells, a technician with The Ghan's operator, Great Southern Railway.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology the thermometer dipped to 8.4C at Woomera on the night in question. Clad only in a pair of boots, jeans and a T-shirt, Mr Vance also had to deal with the severe windchill factor, which according to a weather calculator puts the temperature around -7C.