Firefighter Becomes Hero by Quick Action in Front of Oncoming Train : Rescue: Philip Guiral pulled an injured man from a car moments before a train plowed into it. Guiral downplays his efforts, but the man he saved does not.

A Long Beach resident who left a catering business 10 years ago to seek a more exciting career as a firefighter is being hailed as a hero in South Pasadena after pulling an injured motorist from a car moments before a freight train slammed into it.

When Philip Guiral and five other South Pasadena firefighters responded to a traffic accident March 4, they found two damaged cars on the railroad tracks at Fremont Avenue and Grevelia Street.

The driver of one car had walked away. Guiral, a paramedic until he was promoted to captain a couple of weeks ago, approached the other car. The driver was still inside.

“Just at the time I got there, the crossing arms came down, the bells went off and the lights were flashing,” Guiral recalled in an interview. “I saw the train coming about 200 yards away.”

Guiral was reluctant to move the dazed and bleeding driver--later identified as Kivork (George) Aintablian, 35, of Glendale--fearing such action would worsen a possible spinal cord injury. But as the train approached, the captain decided he had no choice.

“I pulled him out of the car, holding his head with my hand, trying to keep it stable,” he said. “Then I sat him on the sidewalk, out of the way.”

About 20 seconds later, the freight train struck the two cars at 35 m.p.h., officials said.

Guiral, 39, a native of France, had a business degree and started a catering service, he said. But a decade ago, he grew “bored with the 9-to-5” and switched to firefighting.

Guiral said his actions did not deserve special recognition.

“It was instinctive,” he said. “I didn’t think it was any big deal. Any one of the firefighters would have done the same thing. I was just the closest to the car.”

But the rescued driver did not downplay the captain’s courage.

“The way the car was damaged, God knows what would have happened,” said Aintablian, an engineer with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. “I owe him my life, I think. If he didn’t pull me out, then I’m gone.”

Aintablian was treated and released from a Pasadena hospital for a head injury suffered when he hit the windshield.

Aintablian said he was driving home from his office in Alhambra when he collided with a car that, he said, made a left turn in front of him. The other driver, Antonio Delacruz, 47, of Marina del Rey, was not hurt, authorities said.