A 12-year-old boy was acclaimed on Monday after pulling an elderly man from the tracks as a train approached in the northern Vietnamese province of Quang Ninh, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

Hoang Manh Chien, a seventh grader living in Cam Thinh Ward of Cam Pha Town in Quang Ninh Province, received the acclamation at his Cam Thinh Middle School during the flag raising ceremony to start the week.

Chien was riding a bicycle home at around 7:30 pm last Saturday when he saw Nguyen Thanh Vot, a 69-year-old local, lying on the tracks with a motorbike on top of him.

While a train was arriving and the elderly man frantically struggled to get away from the tracks, no one was around to help.

Without hesitation, Chien decided to pull him off the tracks with the train only several meters away.

He moved the man to safety shortly before the train arrived.

The man only suffered minor injuries even though the locomotive pushed his motorbike about three meters.

“Though I was really scared, the train appeared closer and closer and I knew at the moment that if I just stood there and watched, he would definitely have been in danger,” said Chien.

Nguyen Thi Hong, principal of Cam Thinh Middle School, said she was moved and surprised at the same time by Chien’s action as he was “nice but a bit shy at school.”

Local authorities and the school organized a ceremony to praise Chien on Monday afternoon.

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