VIDEO: Freight train slams into SUV in Newark, Del.

A New Jersey senior citizen is alive right now thanks to the quick actions of some off-duty police officers.

The man's Ford Escape was launched off the tracks by a speeding train in Delaware Sunday night. Fortunately, the vehicle was empty at the time.

It happened just past 11:00 p.m. Sunday at the New London railroad crossing on the 100 block of West Main Street.

The train hit the SUV with such force, it pushed the smashed vehicle a quarter mile before finally coming to a stop.

Liz Cackowski was working at the Deer Park Tavern when patrons and coworkers ran to the window.

76-year-old George Kichline was stuck on the tracks. But lucky for him, two off-duty Newark cops were working security detail at the bar.

Newark Police Lieutenant Bill Hargrove explains, "[The officers] ran up to the vehicle as soon as they realized what was happening and started talking to the driver."

That's when the crossing gate began to drop and the warning alarm sounded.

The officers pulled Kichline from the vehicle just a few seconds before impact.

Kichline doesn't recall key details about the moments leading to the accident. He lives two and half hours away in Alpha, New Jersey. His family tells Action New he may be suffering from dementia.

They and others say it's fortunate he wasn't in the vehicle during impact and no one was injured.

Cackowski says, "Thank God that that cop was there - the two cops were there, because they pulled him out of the car."

CSX Transportation, which runs the train, says it was delivering freight from Georgia to New York.

DelDOT calls the intersection where this happened the most dangerous railroad crossing in the state.

The department says it did implement additional lighting and other measures at the crossing in 2009-2010, but they admit this is still a dangerous crossing, and that they may need to think outside the box.