CARLSBAD — Late in the afternoon of Sunday, June 10, Cole McFarland Jr. went walking. He took with him two dogs--Noble, his 3-year-old golden retriever, and Starbell, Noble's "girlfriend." The path they chose borders the train tracks in Carlsbad, a coastal city 30 miles north of San Diego.
To anyone living nearby, the path is an old friend. During daylight hours children ride bicycles, lovers walk arm in arm and dogs scamper about freely, silhouetted by the sunlight dancing off the ocean.
Starbell headed into a clearing. Noble, taking his "evening constitutional," climbed onto the tracks. McFarland, only a few feet away, heard a sudden roar, felt the ground shake and looked up at a terrified Noble. Thundering into view was an Amtrak passenger train, roaring along at 90 miles an hour, southbound from Los Angeles.
" Vindar ," he screamed. It is a Sanskrit command, meaning "Come into my presence." Normally, Noble reacts instantaneously but this time he didn't move. Without hesitating, McFarland leaped--six, maybe seven feet. He grabbed Noble by the chest, flinging him backward, to the east.
From that point on, everything, he said, seemed to happen in slow motion.
"There was that instant of realization when I thought, 'I've saved him; isn't this great!' While the train seems to be moving slowly, in ever-increasing increments. And it's happening, of course, lickety-split. The instant I realized I'd saved him--bam!--the train hits me broadside.
"My entire torso had cleared, but it hit my leg, knocking me to the side. The train's roaring by, and I'm on the ground, trying hard to shake off the blow. I realize I'm hit--I don't want to lose consciousness. Noble's licking my face. I look at the ground and my left leg is severed below the knee, just dangling by a thread. (The leg was amputated several hours later.) But Noble's licking me, taking care of me, being my friend." In the eight months since, McFarland, 35, has gotten letters from all over the world--from Belgium and Australia, Italy and Norway. He has been publicized by two major wire services and the Star, a supermarket tabloid. All the letters are the same. We would do it too , they say. We love our animals just as much .
Others, who have talked to McFarland, are more skeptical. Why? they ask. Why such a risk--especially for a dog? These, McFarland answers with a promise. He would do it again, he says. Without hesitation.
"I have absolutely no regret, absolutely no anger," he said, sitting on a park bench not far from the tracks. He and Noble often come here, and to the site itself, several miles north, "to meditate."
"I had the opportunity," he said, "to save the life of a friend. To do otherwise--to have let him be crushed and to save myself--would have been a horrible blight on my spirit. I could not live with myself, to sacrifice him so I could live."
For McFarland, a tall, thin man with a gaunt angular face and thick wavy hair, "spirit" is a major concept. He becomes intense when the subject is animals, reincarnation or the inhumanity of humans.
"My love for animals is something I've always had," he said in a soft-spoken voice. "I feel more at home with a pack of dogs than a party of people. I find in animals something very pristine, perfect, unspoiled, something ancient and very familiar. They seem to be completely at home with themselves and in place in the universe.
'Fish Out of Water'
"I find a tendency in man--mankind--to be slightly estranged from himself, something like a fish out of water. Still looking to find who he is. Animals have gotten over that. They \o7 know \f7 who they are."
McFarland has a good idea who he is. He's comfortable as a Good Samaritan, though it must have seemed at times like having a death wish. During his second year in law school, a career he abandoned, he stopped to pick up a hitchhiker. Momentarily distracted, he lost control of the wheel. The car struck an on-ramp, hurling McFarland through the windshield and hurting the hitchhiker even worse. The hitchhiker sued and won.
The incident marked a turning point. Disenchanted with life, disillusioned with a Yuppie future, McFarland quit law school and plotted a new course involving animals. For three years now he's been the ringmaster of Noble Endeavors, a dog training and therapy clinic helping canines feel better about themselves. (And their owners, who he says cause most of the problems anyway.)
The latest incident--marked again by Good Samaritanism--has brought another turning point, one McFarland sees as a test.
"A valuable opportunity," he called it, "arranged by providence. Kind of like, 'Here we go, pal. Are you true to your philosophy or not?' "
