A 24-year-old man cheated death by hanging on for dear life to the outside of a high-speed train that departed while he was sneaking a cigarette break between cars.
The harrowing incident took place on a Railjet train — which can reach top speeds of up to 130 mph — traveling between Zurich, Switzerland, and Vienna, Austria.
The cig-puffing Algerian rider — whose identity was not released — was in a gap between two carriages when the train departed from the station, EuroNews reported.
The terrified man started banging on the train’s windows to alert the crew, prompting the conductor to engage the emergency brake.
Crew members took the man inside, with a passenger later recalling how the furious conductor “really had a very big go” at the dedicated smoker, according to the Austrian newspaper Heute.
The rule-breaking rider was arrested when the train arrived at Meidling station — 7 minutes behind schedule.
The Austrian rail company swiftly denounced the man’s boneheaded act, issuing a warning that similar mishaps often result in fatalities, putting not just passengers at risk but also crew members and emergency responders.
The incident recalls a similar death-defying occurrence in January in which a 40-year-old Hungarian commuter tried to sneak a smoke break between stops on a bullet train in Germany.
As the doors on the train shut and it started moving, he took a leap of faith between two of its cars while the locomotive began reaching speeds of 175 mph, desperately clinging on for about 20 miles before witnesses spotted him and alerted authorities.
