A Prague tram driver chased his runaway tram on a bike, caught it after a lengthy ride, but ended up in hospital with a heart attack, the Czech daily DNES reported on Friday.
The empty unbraked tram crashed through a closed gate at a depot in western Prague and sped on to the tracks, crossing a busy four-lane street in the process.
Technicians switched off power, but the vehicle continued down the street for about a kilometre (0.6 miles).
The driver, who most probably neglected to pull the brake, meanwhile stopped a biker passing by, borrowed his bicycle and finally managed to get in the tram and stop it.
"A recording from the cabin showed the driver had caught the slowing tram and stopped it in the end," DNES quoted Jan Kucera from the Czech rail transport inspection authority as saying.
But the misadventure which happened Wednesday proved too much for the driver, around 50 years old, who suffered a heart attack and was taken to hospital.
"His life is not in immediate danger," Prague-Motol hospital spokeswoman Eva Jurinova told the daily.
The driver faces up to three years in prison if convicted of a serious breach of work duties as the rail transport inspectors ruled out a defect as the cause, DNES added.
Copyright 2010 AFP Global Edition
