Cairo: An Egyptian girl has got a new lease of life after her father saved her from death under a moving train in Egypt.
A video that went viral online shows the father crouching with his body over the girl as the train is speeding off next to them.
Social media users has described the father as Super father.
Super father
"The father hugged his daughter under the train that had taken the girl by surprise when it started to move," said a university student, named Ahmad Akef, who recorded the incident on his cellphone.
"It was a terrible scene that left everyone standing on the station platform stunned," he told private newspaper Al Watan.
Ala Ebrahim, another eyewitness, happened to be at the rail station of Ismailia city where the incident took place on Monday.
"The girl was walking on the train tracks. Suddenly, the goods train sounded its siren, perplexing the girl who fell on the ground semi-unconscious," Ebrahim recounted.
"At that moment, her father decided to sacrifice himself to save her. He jumped down [from the platform] disregarding people's shouts for him to come back because the train was coming nearer. We kept praying to God for their lives while fear almost stopped our hearts," Ebrahim added.
Others called him 'negligent'
While the father was praised for his act, an official at the rail Ismailia station dubbed him as a "negligent dad".
Ashraf Abdul Hamid, a train supervisor at the sitation, said the father did not care to use a pedestrian tunnel to cross to the other side of the station.
"Instead he [along with his daughter] crossed from the tracks, where a goods train was stationary at the time," the official said.
"But the train moved while the man and his daughter were crossing the tracks. The man was able to jump onto the platform, leaving his daughter behind," the supervisor told private Egyptian TV station CBC Monday night.
"You call him a Super Dad, while he is in fact a negligent father," the official added.
So far, the father has not been identified. But witnesses said he is in his 50s while his daughter is a aged 13 to 14 years.
Egypt has a poor record of rail tragedies.
Egypt’s worst rail tragedy occurred in 2002 when 373 people were killed in a fire on a passenger train.
