TradeMe screenshot.
"Did you save my life 35 years ago?"
That's the question Auckland ambulance officer Kenan Elmaz is asking members of the public.
The 38-year-old was saved by a young married couple during the 1970s and now, as a grown man with his own young son, he's keen to find them
and say thanks.
"Back in about 1974 in October or November a little boy was literally saved from the railway tracks as a train was about to take his life. The little boy was 2 or 3 years old," he wrote on Trade Me's chat site.
"The incident occurred in Levin on the Bath St rail crossing. The rescuers name was Steve (his last name is presently unknown) and his wife was Lynda, I believe they were in their 20's and it was also their wedding anniversary."
"The rescue was of Hollywood proportions... A man and his wife are in a taxi, they see a little boy standing on the tracks as they go across the crossing, he hears the bells start to ring, realizes that a train is about go past and kill this little boy, the man screams at the taxi driver to stop, leaps out, sprints towards the tracks now some 50
meters or so away, the train is really close, he literally leaps across the tracks as the train passes and until the train has passed his wife and anyone else seeing the feat aren't sure if they made it with their lives or not!"
"The little boy is me and I'd like to find Steve."
Mr Elmaz said the story is mostly based on what his mother told him.
"I only remember not wanting the ice-cream Lynda was trying to give me and screaming for my Mummy."
He says the house his mother picked him up from was in Power St but he has little else to go on in regards to tracking Steve and Lynda down.
His mother, who is not named, has also posted on the site saying she was in a store buying some ribbon for her daughter's party dress when she noticed her son was no longer by her side. After searching the shop she went outside where she saw a policeman and told him she'd lost her son, but he didn't seem "interested".
She then spent 20 minutes searching the streets - at one stage hearing a train go by - before ringing police from a phone booth.
"I asked if a little boy had been found wearing check shorts and long white socks ( yes that is still imprinted on my mind!) They were pretty short with me, but oh the joy in hearing he was safe!!!!"
"We had Steve and Lynda to a meal to try and show our gratitude and saw them periodically after that, but then lost touch and sadly I now cannot remember their surname. We have spoken many times over the years of our own Steve the 6 million dollarman!!"
- NZHERALD STAFF
