Missing Student Found by Tracks ‘Somehow Got Aboard a Moving Freight Train,' Dad Says: Report

A Georgia Tech student who was discovered injured next to train tracks in downtown Atlanta may have boarded a moving train before being found, his father told the local NBC affiliate.

Jimmy Hubert, IV, had been missing for more than two days before he was tracked down to the railroad tracks on Monday, Oct. 19, thanks to a cell phone app in a phone he carried. He originally told a friend who’d found him he was beaten by a group of homeless men, according to to an Associated Press report from that week.

But his father now says that Hubert apparently did something reckless, and that police are still investigating whether or not he was robbed.

"It appears that he somehow got aboard a moving freight train. How he did this is unclear. What happened between his time on the train and the time he was found remains a mystery," Jim Hubert said in a statement sent to NBC affiliate WXIA.

Jim Hubert also said his son is recovering and remembering more every day. A family spokesman told WXIA that they were informed there is video of Hubert IV jumping onto a train from a bridge but can't confirm if it exists 

The Atlanta Police Department wasn't available to comment Wednesday night, but a police spokesman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she could not comment on the family's statement.

WXIA also reported that a friend of Jimmy Hubert’s told the Atlanta Police Department that he was found under a pile of coats.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Us