Hero saves dog after owner drags it onto railway tracks

A man has been photographed rescuing a dog whose owner dragged it onto a railway track while a train was approaching in Manchester.

An eyewitness said the man was shouting and screaming as he walked his dog up the tracks as a train hurtled into the station.

Thanks to quick-thinking staff the train was stopped while a fellow passenger, Mickey Parkes, wrestled the dog to safety.

It happened on platform 14 of Manchester Piccadilly as passengers waited for Saturday's 10.55am train to Liverpool.

The moment was captured by local photographer Dusty Baggins, 50, from Hadfield, on the edge of the Peak District.

Dusty told Caters: "The guy was just walking up the track, shouting and screaming, you couldn't work out what he was saying.

"He was a big guy, maybe 19 stone and 5 foot 8, he jumped onto the railway line dragging his old Labrador by the lead.

"He's clearly not well, so people were going towards him saying 'what you're doing what you're doing?'

"This one young chap had seen the train stop not a quarter of a mile away.

"He wrestled the dog off him and cleared off the line. Then the big feller jumped back on to the platform and the police jumped right on him, took him down and took him off.

"The dog is in a dog's home now, it was a very old dog, the poor thing.

"The guard on the platform had seen it all and quick as anything phoned through and got the lights changed for the oncoming train, but well, if the guard hadn't..."

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Mickey, a self-confesses dog-lover (pictured above), said: "I saw the train coming, and my concern was that on the other side of the track there is a metal railing, and for some reason I had it in my head that he would try and jump over with the dog.

"There's a 40ft drop on the other side, so it would almost certainly have killed both of them.

"My instinct was to get down and get the dog. I had to wrestle it off of the guy."

According to the Metro, the man appeared at Salford Magistrates' Court where he pleaded guilty to railway trespass and was given absolute discharge.

British Transport Police have not commented on the incident.

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