Canadian kicked in the head by train operator tells his story

CTV Saskatoon: Traveller kicked by train conductor Jared Frank was standing near a passing train when he was kicked in the head by a conductor.

It’s already become the kick heard around the Internet: a hilarious YouTube clip of a man taking a video of himself standing next to some train tracks getting kicked in the head by a worker on a passing locomotive.

The video has been viewed more than 5 million times since it was uploaded two days ago with plenty of commenters wondering why the man seems more interested in taking a selfie when a freight train is barrelling toward him.

Well, it turns out the man is from Regina.

Jarad Frank tells CTV Saskatoon he shot the video about a month while travelling in Peru with a friend. They were trying to get to Machu Picchu, he says, and had to walk along a path that took them past a set of train tracks.

Several trains had already gone by slowly on those tracks, Frank says, so when he saw another train coming around the corner, he decided to take a video.

As he poses for the camera, with a serious look on his face, the train’s horn can be heard blasting, someone yelling something to him, and then a black boot making contact with his face.

Frank admits he wasn’t prepared for how fast the train was coming.

"The train definitely wasn't going the same speed as it was the first time. It was going normal train speed,” he told CTV by phone from Regina Wednesday. “That's why the video starts within, like, a second of me getting kicked in the head.”

He says he was getting set up to take the shot just as it moved past.

“I pressed play and was going to look at where the train was, but by that time, I already got kicked in the head.”

Frank says he wasn’t hurt by the kick, he was just mainly in shock. He also doesn’t think he was ever in much danger, as the train was further back than it might appear.

“The truth is he (the train worker) wasn’t on the front of the train; he was on four feet off the front of the train kind of a thing. So if the train was going to hit me, it was going to hit me before his boot ever reached me,” he says.

Since Frank uploaded the video on Tuesday, it’s already received dozens of comments, most of them commenting on the stupidity of someone standing so close to a set of tracks.

While Frank may be getting mocked, he says he doesn’t regret uploading the shot.

“Honestly, even the truth is a little ridiculous and it does make me look stupid. But it was an accident and I got it on film and I think it would have been a shame to just throw it away.”

With a report from CTV Saskatoon’s Jamie Fischer