Train hits Indiana man 'like a bug on a windshield'
MUNCIE – Perhaps William Richard Stacy should consider himself lucky.
About 12:40 a.m. Friday, the 40-year-old Muncie man tried to outrun an oncoming train as it traveled eastbound on tracks crossing White River Boulevard, near the White River Plaza.
Stacy would later tell police he tried to beat the train, unsuccessfully, by running around a crossing arm. However, the engine — pulling 60 cars behind it, and traveling at about 15 mph, according to reports — struck Stacy, and carried the Muncie man over the railroad trestle across White River.
"It picked me up like a bug on a windshield," Stacy told The Star Press on Monday morning.
The Muncie man said he managed to roll off the engine, to relative safety, once it had crossed the river. He said he believed he was in shock as he scaled a fence and walked through Beech Grove Cemetery, and later took a taxi cab to IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital.
The train's engineer stopped after striking the pedestrian and called police, who searched the immediate area and found no sign of a victim — other than a pocketknife believed to belong to Stacy.
About 2:50 a.m., officers learned of the arrival at the hospital of a man purporting to have been hit by a train.
An officer wrote that Stacy had "wounds to both hands and legs that can best be described as road rash."
The police report indicated Stacy was arrested after being treated at the hospital on a Muncie City Court warrant stemming from a driving-while-suspended charge. (The Muncie man on Monday contended he had not received much in the way of medical treatment.)
He was later released from the jail on his own recognizance.
Shortly before 11 p.m. Friday, a Hartford City woman reported to police that Stacy — whom she said she had recently kicked out of her home — was on her porch, and that she believed he had damaged her front door.
A short time later, Stacy approached authorities in that Blackford County city to report he had recently been hit by a train, and believed he was suffering from a broken leg.
A report appears to reflect Stacy — who has a long arrest record — was then given a ride to Eaton.
Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. You can also follow him on Twitter @DouglasWalkerSP.