Wisconsin Gets Another Hero

On a day set aside to celebrate our heroes, Elm Grove Police Officer John Krahn becomes one.

I always find it amazing that when  police officer does something bad, it taints the entire department and you hear about it for weeks and ever office is compared to the bad apple.  However, when a cop does something that is this heroic, we’ll hear about it for a day or two then people seem to forget.

Heroic rescue; 2 hurt

Headed to the Elm Grove Memorial Day parade in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Monica Ensley-Partenfelder found herself and her 2-year-old son directly in the path of a 94-car freight train barreling toward them, whistle blaring.

What should have been a festive start to the holiday instead turned into a frantic effort to save the woman and boy in the moments before the train struck their minivan head-on about 9:30 a.m. Monday.

A police officer, John Krahn, 41, assigned the routine duty of parade traffic control, sprinted to the scene and freed 40-year-old Ensley-Partenfelder, of West Allis. Her husband, Scott Partenfelder, 47, who was stuck in traffic in a different vehicle nearby on Juneau Blvd., tried to unhook the 2-year-old from a car seat.

He couldn’t get him out.

The force of the impact created an explosive effect, hurtling the minivan across the grass - crushed and collapsed. Much of the driver’s side was gone.

The 2-year-old in the car seat was brought out, miraculously, uninjured.

Karen Gray-Hoehn, who was three cars from the tracks when she saw the crash, watched the railroad signals go on. Then the gates came down. Krahn sprinted from his parade post.

“He started running toward the tracks. He yelled. He told the woman to gun it, get over the railroad tracks,” Gray-Hoehn said. “We could hear it, smell it. She gunned the thing. Her wheels turned and got stuck on the railroad track. The car flipped and faced the train. We could see the front tire spinning in the gravel on the side of the tracks itself.”

Krahn ran up and opened the front door. He grabbed the woman and went to open the side door, where her husband was trying to rescue the boy.

Then the train hit the van. Gray-Hoehn watched its brutal force throw the two men, with pieces of the smashed van following.

“It was horrible,” she said.