BY JERRIE WHITELEY
HERALD DEMOCRAT
SHERMAN -- April Fool's Day started off without much laughter for a man whose car got smashed by a train at around 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Bruce Dawsey of the Sherman Police Department said dispatchers received a call seeking assistance at about that time from a man who said his car was stuck on the track and he didn't know what to do.
"I am scared and I am lost and I am stranded on a railroad track," the man could be heard telling the dispatcher on a recording of the 911 call.
"I took the wrong turn somewhere and I am so lost," he continued.
When the dispatcher asked him to look around and tell her what he could see, he said, "railroad tracks and some woods."
"Were you on a main highway at some point?" she asked.
He replied that he was and she asked him to tell her what he saw.
Then he started talking about a train.
"There is a train coming and I am gonna ... I am gonna get killed," the man said in a voice that sounded somewhere between confused and sleepy.
"She told him to get out of the car, and he did," Dawsey said.
Then the dispatcher tried to continue finding out the man's location.
"Where did you come from?" she asked.
"Dallas, Texas," he responded.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"There goes my car," he answered.
She asked if something had hit his car.
"Yep, it's gonna hit real quick ... It's gone."
A few seconds later, a loud screeching noise started and he continued to say, "Yep, it's gone."
Dawsey said the dispatchers then received a call from the train's drivers saying it had struck a car.
Officers arrived at the scene on Howe Drive, south of F.M. 1417 and west of U.S. Highway 75, and found the car carnage as well as a man they suspected might be intoxicated. The train, Dawsey said, had pushed the car several hundred feet down the track. He said officers had the man, identified as Jeff Sabold, 46, perform field sobriety test and then arrested him. He was booked into the Grayson County Jail.
Dawsey said he didn't have any information on the amount of damage to Sabold's 2000 Ferrari. The train, Dawsey said, did not derail. Dawsey said it is unclear, at this point, if the man will face any additional charges stemming from the wreck.
Sabold is listed on the company Web site as owner of Automotive Concepts, a luxury car service company in Carrollton.