When Push Came to Shove, Trainman Proved a Hero

--Trainman John Kohl says anyone would have tried to rescue a little girl from an oncoming train, but what he did--leaning from a moving locomotive to shove her off the tracks--earned him a heroism award. “You can measure the distance between life and death by the length of his arm. It was an extraordinary action,” said John Riley, head of the Federal Railway Administration, who presented Kohl with a medal and plaque in Pittsburgh for saving the life of 2-year-old Jeanne Defibaugh last summer. On July 27, Kohl’s 62-car Conrail freight train was rumbling through Cresson, Pa., when the crew noticed Jeanne in the middle of the tracks. The train, traveling at 20 to 25 m.p.h., began an emergency stop and whistled, but the terrified child ran along the track instead of going to the side. Kohl, 42, climbed out of the cabin onto a metal frame called a snowplow or cowcatcher. He leaned out in front of the locomotive and, with a sweep of his arm, swatted the girl aside. “I swept her out of the way and she landed on her belly,” he said. The train finally stopped more than 200 feet past where Jeanne was sitting and crying, unhurt.

--An 11-year-old Moscow schoolgirl is embarking on a two-week U.S. peace tour, reminiscent of Samantha Smith’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1983. The official Soviet news agency Tass said Katya Lycheva, a fifth-grade student at Special English School No. 4 in Moscow, will carry with her paper peace doves made by Soviet children. Tass said she is making the visit at the invitation of a San Francisco group called Children as Peace Makers. On her tour of the United States, she will be joined by 10-year-old Star Rowe, the daughter of a San Francisco street artist. Katya will arrive in Chicago and also visit New York, Washington, Houston and Los Angeles. Maine schoolgirl Samantha visited the Soviet Union with a peace message before she died last year in a plane crash.

--Actor Don Johnson’s sockless feet and 5 o’clock shadow may seem fashionable to his fans, but Lee A. Iacocca, who is to join the “Miami Vice” star in an episode of the series in Miami, has other ideas. The Chrysler Corp. chairman will appear as a police officer on a “Miami Vice” episode to be broadcast in May. He joked that “Vice” stars ought to switch to Chrysler luxury sports cars, but said, “The first thing I’m going to do is to tell Don Johnson to get a shave and put on some socks.” Iacocca, in Miami to promote Chrysler’s 1987 cars, was invited to appear on the NBC show by Michael Talbott, who plays Detective Switek, said Chrysler spokesman John Guiniven. Guiniven said he didn’t know details of the appearance or whether Iacocca, 61, would be paid for it.