Gwinnett County

Family of man killed by train save another’s life after car got stuck on tracks

DULUTH, Ga. — The family of a man killed by a train in Duluth believes the man refused to leave his car not because he wanted to save the vehicle but other lives.

The family told Channel 2′s Tony Thomas that they had come to take a look at the site Sunday night. They ended up saving someone else who also got stuck on the tracks in the same spot along S. Peachtree Street.

“That street is terrible,” Forrest Li said.

When Forrest Li took his cousin’s widow to the train tracks where Guangyun Jin died, he never imagined he would save another driver stuck on the tracks.

“I think it is my duty. God wants me to do something,” Forrest Li said.

But that was exactly what happened Sunday night.

Forrest Li was able to convince the driver to leave his car behind and Duluth police were able to stop an inbound train before it hit the car.

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Last week Jin, an Uber driver with a passenger in the car, got stuck on the same tracks. The passenger bailed but Jin remained. He was hit and killed.

“If he leaves the vehicle, it may cause an even worse accident, that’s why he is trying to remove the vehicle,” mother Zhen Zi Li said through a translator.

Duluth police have a long list of vehicles they had to rescue off the stretch of tracks.

There’s not much lighting at night and the roads come in at an angle, with the pavement dropping immediately.

Jin’s family believes something needs to be done.

“He tried to avoid an accident, but he didn’t have enough time,” Forrest Li said.

As the family mourns, they are focusing on Jin’s wife and 2-year-old daughter. The family is raising money on GoFundMe to support the mother-and-daughter pair.

“Every single night she looks out the window, ‘Where is his vehicle?’” Jin’s wife Chunyan Xu said.

A city spokesperson said the crossing is actually closed in the next 18 months or so. A new, better-designed crossing is planned just a couple hundred yards from the intersection.

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