Birds on the Brain

Staff Sgt. Grant Learned says the 51-year-old was drunk when he fell asleep Wednesday afternoon while smoking in the grassy area behind his Kamloops-area home.

Learned says the man woke to find his clothes on fire and flames around him, but rather than calling for help, he raced to his home, grabbed a bicycle and fled.

Mounties were responding to reports of a man running from the scene of a suspicious fire when they got another call that a pedestrian had been hit by a train along the nearby CP Rail tracks.

Police quickly determined that the two cases were linked, and say the man is now recovering in hospital from a gash to the head, caused by the train, and serious burns caused by the grass fire.