LEBANON, Tenn. – A Wilson County school teacher is credited with helping save the life of a man who suffered a seizure and crashed on train tracks in Lebanon as a train quickly approached.
Brian Black is an English teacher at Lebanon High School.
He told Nashville's News 2 he was on his way to work Tuesday morning, driving along Tennessee Boulevard near Gulf Avenue, when he noticed a driver lose control and crash on the tracks.
"[I] was about to turn left into the school and right in front of me there was a Ford Ranger that completely lost control, veered left and went over the railroad tracks," he recalled.
Black, a first year teacher and coach at the school, said when he approached the vehicle he immediately knew the driver, Nick Masters, was having a seizure.
Just seconds after getting to the crashed truck, Black said a train horn sounded.
He knew he was left with no choice but to remove the 20-year-old man from the vehicle while a city worker who had stopped to assist him attempted to stop the oncoming train.
"Within 20 to 30 seconds of us showing up right next to his vehicle, we heard the horn siren for the train and that's when I decided it was necessary to move him," Black recalled. "I told the street sweeper, ‘Run up there as fast as you can and see if you can stop the train from coming.'"
He continued, "[I] pulled him out of the vehicle to avoid the train hitting the truck and him and both of us."
Luckily, the city worker got the attention of the train's conductor, who was able to stop the moving train about 100 feet from where Black was helping the man in need.
Masters' mother, Karen, told Nashville's News 2 she is extremely grateful for Black's heroic actions.
Black credits his teacher instincts.
"It's part of my nature, at least being a teacher. I have students that have needs and I help them. I feel like most people would do the same thing in the same situation," he said.
Masters is said to be shaken up from the terrifying incident, but is recovering.
Brian Black teaches English at Lebanon High School in Wilson County.
