Azbar Ali Hajavi, known across Iran as the ‘Devoted Farmer’ (in Persian Dehqan-e Fadakar), a villager who saved the lives of train passengers in 1962, died on Saturday in Tabriz, East Azarbaijan Province.
He was born in 1931 in the village of Qale-Juq in Mianeh County. He died of pneumonia and kidney failure at Imam Reza Hospital in Tabriz, Tansim News Agency reported. He is mostly remembered for his sincere smile.
One night in the fall of 1962, Hajavi was walking by a railroad when he saw part of the line blocked by mountainside debris. He prevented an imminent deadly crash by warning the approaching train with his makeshift torch that was actually his coat, and later by firing his rifle.
His story is among the syllabus for third grade elementary school for many years.
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