METROLINK TO HAIL HEROIC EFFORT.

Byline: Eric Moses Daily News Staff Writer

Maybe it was the basic survival training Bob Barker got in the Army during World War II. Or maybe it was raising five kids.

Whatever it was, Barker said Thursday that when he saw a man tumble onto the Metrolink tracks Jan. 28 as a train rolled into the Burbank station, all he could think to do was move fast.

``I reacted instinctively,'' the Sun Valley man said. ``I didn't think, Should I do this or shouldn't I? I would want somebody else to do this for me. I just saw somebody in trouble.''

Today, the 72-year-old structural engineer will be honored by Metrolink and Operation Lifesaver Inc. during the rail authority's monthly board meeting.

It was the first such rescue in the six years the Southern California Regional Rail Authority has operated Metrolink.

If not for back surgery eight months ago, Barker said he might not have been able to make the save. While waiting for the 7:52 a.m. train, the man fell to the tracks, Barker sprinted to the edge of the platform, reached down and grabbed hold of the man's hand.

A woman helped Barker bring the man to safety seconds before the slowing 450-ton train rolled by. Barker and Metrolink officials never learned her name.

The fallen man mumbled a thank-you before Metrolink officials helped him get on the train. Sheriff's deputies helped the man seek medical assistance upon arrival at Union Station. He asked Metrolink officials to remain anonymous.

It all began when he apparently suffered a seizure due to a reaction from a medication, lost his footing and fell about 2 feet to the tracks, said Metrolink spokesman Peter Hidalgo.

Barker's daughter, Janet, who works at Good Samaritan Hospital's blood bank, said she will attend the ceremony with her 15-year-old son.

``I'm so proud of him,'' she said. ``He was real modest about it and said that it wasn't anything anybody else would (not) do. But the fact is he did it, and everybody else froze in their tracks.''

Barker has been taking Metrolink and Metro Rail trains to his downtown office at John A. Martin and Associates Inc. for about five years.

The closest he came to heroics before this was 52 years ago, when he worked for Southern Pacific Railroad. He said he chased down a runaway rail car, jumped aboard and cranked the brake wheel before it crashed. No lives were threatened then, he said, except his.

He was a radio operator in the Army's 37th Division under General George S. Patton during the Battle of the Bulge.

Michael Baltay, an engineer who works with Barker, witnessed the rescue.

``I tell you, he's a hero,'' he said. ``But what do you expect from a person who went through the Second World War?''

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Photo

PHOTO Bob Barker, 72, of Sun Valley takes a modest view of his life-saving deed, when he pulled a man who had fallen onto the tracks out of the way of an oncoming train Jan. 28.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News