A CTA Orange Line train driver got a samurai surprise on Saturday when he encountered a sword-wielding man in the middle of the tracks.

According to Chicago police, the 35-year-old operator was driving the Orange Line train at 4:30 p.m. June 16 when he saw the man on the tracks at 14th Street and called the CTA control room to turn off the power on the line. He then left the train and confronted the man, who started swinging the sword at him lacerating his right ear lobe and causing a deep laceration to his right forearm.

As he struggled to gain control of the sword, the man tried to throw him over the side of the track platform. The employee then subdued the man and took him aboard the waiting Orange Line train which police met at the Roosevelt station.

Police later charged Albert R. Burage, 30, of the 1000 block of West 19th Street, with aggravated battery. Police said Burage had stolen the double-edged Chinese decorative sword from the Oriental Arts Center on Wentworth Avenue without paying and fled to the Cermak/Chinatown Red Line station, where he confronted a security guard and then ran northbound and then onto the Orange Line tracks.

The CTA employee was taken to Northwestern Hospital, where he was treated and released.

---

By Jazzy from Lake Villa
Posted: 06/26/2012 11:19 AM

this guy walked right past me. I was biking in china town that day with my boyfriend we even have photographs of the Sword and police in action as well ad the station. Contact me if interested. ramennoodle5@hotmail.com