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EASY WALK IF APPROACHED FROM HACIENDA.
On January 26, 2005 my friend and fellow geocacher Phish6 (Brian) was present when the Metrolink train derailed in Glendale. Dispite the danger including fires and leaking fuel he helped people trapped in the wreckage to escape. This cache is in honor of his bravery that day. I think it would be great if those of you who find this cache (or those who don't) would e-mail a note to him.
The cache is an ammo box. FIRST TO FIND CAN HAVE THE 1949 SERIES SUPERBOY COMIC (EVERYONE'S FAVORITE SUPER-HERO).
Also included are:
travel bug
where's George dollar
Frog hacky sack
Mc Donald's transformer
"Cool" glasses
Magnifying glass
!/2 of a coconut shell
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Please read this:
(An article from the Whittier Daily News Feb 2, 2005)
Acting amid the chaos
La Habran among impromptu rescuers after train crash
By Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell, Staff Writer
LA HABRA -- As trucker Brian Fischer, a La Habra resident, waited his turn to make a delivery at Costco in Glendale, he said he heard a screeching noise that didn't sound right.
Seconds later, there was a thundering boom. Fischer, an employee of Pepsi Bottling Group, ran out of the building, accompanied by a Costco forklift driver.
Outside, they encountered the scene of carnage and devastation left by the deadly commuter train crash on Jan. 26. Fischer described his horrific first sight of a Metrolink car lying across tracks, menacing flames and diesel fuel coating the ground.
And, from somewhere in the tangled rubble, Fischer said he heard a man's voice pleading, "help me, help me."
"It was dark, unreal, and I didn't even know what I was looking at," said Fischer. "There was just this voice ... saying help me, I'm stuck."
From that moment on Fischer, 47, was caught up in the drama of that dreadful chain reaction disaster in which a southbound Metrolink commuter train hit a Jeep Grand Cherokee parked on the tracks, causing it to careen into a parked Union Pacific locomotive, while its other cars collided with a northbound Metrolink train.
An allegedly suicidal man, Juan Manuel Alvarez, 25, has been arrested for abandoning the SUV on the tracks, causing the train disaster that killed 11 people and injured more than 100. He has been charged with murder.
Fischer said as he turned to see where the voice was coming from, he and other Costco workers and truckers spotted another injured person on top of a locomotive.
"He ... had blood on his face and was wobbly, so we went to help him," he said. "We were holding his ankles and telling him to jump, but he said he was hurting too much.
"Suddenly, everyone started yelling, we are going to blow up.' We yelled at the man to jump into our arms. (He did) and we helped him walk away."
With everyone running from the scene, Fischer remembered the other man who had begged for help earlier. He said he told another driver there was someone else trapped in the rubble.
Fischer said he and the other man, whom he knew only as Dean, looked back at the flames and diesel fuel. They hesitated a moment but went back to see if they could find the man.
"A million things were going through my mind. My wife and kids, and is this going to blow?" he said. "Then the other guy yelled at me, What are you doing? I can't do this by myself.' That snapped me out of (my thoughts)."
He recalled the injured man saying, "Don't leave me here. I don't want to die in a fire" over and over again, as he and the other driver tugged on the man, trying to pull him from the wreckage.
He said they could see the man had one badly broken arm, so they were trying to lift him out by the other arm and his belt, but the belt broke.
"I kept thinking we are going to hurt this guy," said Fischer. "But finally we pulled him free."
Fischer said the man's legs were broken and he was covered in soot and blood.
The two drivers helped him to the side of the Costco building, and Fischer put his jacket under his head to help him breathe.
Firefighters and paramedics arrived on the scene, but the man that Fischer knew only as Scott died soon afterward.
Glendale police did not return calls, but according to news reports, a truck driver named Dean Jaeschke, who regularly delivered ice cream to the Costco, worked with a second driver to pull a man named Scott McKeown from the wreckage. McKeown, 42, is listed as one of the 11 people who died.
A call placed to Southwest Traders Inc. in Temecula, where Jaeschke works, was not returned.
Fischer lingered at the scene to help other dazed commuters walking out of the wreckage, but soon he said a sheriff's deputy told him to move his truck. He drove from the awful scene onto the Santa Ana (5) Freeway.
"I'm on the freeway. It's raining. My face is going numb and my pants are drenched in diesel fuel," he said. "All I wanted was a cup of coffee and to go home."
Later in the day, as Fischer watched newscasts, he heard mention of Dean, the other driver who helped pull McKeown from the rubble, but no mention of himself.
"It's OK. I mostly felt badly about Scott dying," he said. "I've heard 50,000 horror stories over the years. Now I have mine."
But Randy Mickles, Fischer's boss for 20 years at Pepsi Bottling Group in Buena Park, said he has contacted his boss and human resources at Pepsi to try to get some recognition for Fischer.
"He could have left, but he went above and beyond the call of duty," said Mickles. "He was a real hero that day."
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
onfrbsgerr