The moment a US politician nearly gets hit by a train... during press conference on rail safety

Watch as the Connecticut Senator experiences a brush with death during a hair-raising moment of pure irony

Tom Payne
Sunday 20 April 2014 17:35 BST
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As the saying goes, you have to practise what you preach.

That’s certainly the lesson that Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal learnt when he narrowly dodged an oncoming train during a press conference on - you guessed it - rail safety.

This video from the KHON2 news channel shows the moment a speeding train breezed through the platform, almost knocking over an easel demonstrating improvements made to a notoriously dangerous rail line in the city of Milford, Connecticut.

Standing sheepishly with the city’s mayor Ben Blake, the senator showed us all that actions speak loud than words when he said “safety, as you know, is paramount” just as the Amtrak train thundered past.

Senator Blumenthal had led calls for a safety overhaul of the stretch of track which has resulted in no fewer than 139 safety violations in the past 10 years.

Mr Blumenthal will be thankful that his brush with near-death ended in nothing more than a moment of hair-raising irony.

That yellow line? It’s there for a reason, senator.

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