Enlarge image
Freight trains in Lower Saxony (archive image)
Photo: Jonas Walzberg / dpa
A 14-year-old from Saxony-Anhalt held onto the outside of a moving freight train for almost an hour as a stowaway in sub-zero temperatures.
According to the federal police in Hanover, the girl stood on the running board of a freight train that stopped near Magdeburg with several other young people on Monday night.
In contrast to the others, the 14-year-old missed the jump.
As a result, she had to cling to a handle at up to 100 kilometers per hour and a temperature of minus 3.5 degrees Celsius during the night-time drive through Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony in the icy wind, the police said.
The freight train finally stopped an hour later near Cremlingen just before Braunschweig because of a construction site.
"Heavily hypothermic, completely dirty and with only one shoe left," the girl knocked on the engine driver's door, they said.
Girl had to be lifted off the locomotive
Accordingly, the frozen teenager was no longer able to get off the locomotive without outside help.
She was treated in a hospital while federal police informed her parents.
As a precaution, officials searched the train for other stowaways.
They also filed criminal charges against the girl and pointed out that the delays could also result in claims for damages.
wit/AFP
