Man Who Says He Was Hit By Train Injures Officer

Nicholas Raines, a 27-year-old Powder Springs resident, told police he tried to commit suicide by placing himself in front of a train on April 2 near the Silver Comet Trail.

Police responded around 6 p.m. to Powder Springs-Dallas Road near the entrance of the trail on a call of someone being struck by a train, according to a report.

A witness told police a man had ran “from the railroad tracks towards the Silver Comet Trail, yelling that he had been hit by the train and wanted to die and was bleeding from his head and arm.”

As police began their search, an officer noticed an oncoming bicyclist. When the officer called to him, the man threw down his bicycle and started to run.

The man eluded police, so they began to set up a perimeter and search the area, the report says.

An officer noticed a white shirt with a “large amount of dark red blood” on it near a creek. The officer returned to the place where the man was seen last and noticed a man on the ground with an “extreme amount of blood coming from his head.”

When the officer told him not to move, he ran off. The officer chased and caught up to him.

According to the report, Raines struggled with the officer and said phrases including: “I want to die,” “I’m going to kill myself,” “You (expletive) pigs are going to have to kill me” and “Why didn’t I die when I laid down on the track and the train ran me over?”

“Due to excessive struggle with the subject, I had to use the necessary amount of force to control the subject from hurting me and himself,” the report says, later adding the officer’s right knee was injured, and a police cell phone and portable radio microphone were broken. 

Once in handcuffs, the officer took Raines to Powder Springs-Dallas Road, where medical personnel were waiting. Raines didn’t cooperate, so police put him in the back of a police car.

Raines was taken to Cobb WellStar Hospital. There he continued to resist while spitting and cursing, the report says. He was placed onto a gurney with restraints.

As he made suicidal threats, a nurse gave Raines sedative medicine and told police he would be monitored for a couple days.

Raines was charged with resisting an officer/arrest, and disorderly conduct.