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See, now this?
THIS is a good reason to jump onto the tracks, to save somebody's life.
There is absolutely NO other justified reason. Whatever it is you dropped, it isn't worth your life.
Another Everyday Hero in the Subway, Gone in a Flash
By RAY RIVERA and KAREN ZRAICK
The name Wesley Autrey may have slipped from the popular imagination of New Yorkers, the way everyday heroes do. But in the subterranean world of the city’s subways, his spirit may still be subconsciously inspiring.
Mr. Autrey was the 50-year-old construction worker and father of two who, in 2007, threw himself on top of a man who was having a seizure on the subway tracks and held him down in the shallow trench between the rails as the No. 1 train passed over them.
A city hailed him. A president invited him to the White House.
Then another subway hero came along. This one was named Chad Lindsey, an aspiring actor who jumped on the tracks last year to help a fallen man, then quickly disappeared. He would have remained anonymous if friends had not revealed his role. He later said he had thought about Mr. Autrey as he jumped onto the tracks.
On Monday evening, another subway Samaritan may have come and gone, and the most that anyone can offer about him is that he is an unidentified black man.
After a woman fainted onto the tracks at the Union Square station, witnesses told the police, the man jumped onto the track bed to try to revive her. Seeing the lights of an Eighth Avenue-bound L train, and probably realizing he was out of time, he hastily positioned her body in the trench between the tracks, then hoisted himself out as the train roared in, the police said.
It all happened so fast, said Ana Mercedes Cardenas, a 27-year-old lawyer who was on the Brooklyn-bound L platform and saw the woman face-down on the tracks. The woman, who the police said was 26, was not moving, and a pool of blood was forming. Everyone around rushed over, horrified, Ms. Cardenas said. One man ran upstairs to alert a station agent. Another approached the edge to jump down, she said, but was warned off by other straphangers. They heard the train approach, and panic set in.
One witness, Alex Contreras, 36, said passengers were signaling for the conductor to stop the train, but to no avail.
Five cars passed over the woman before the train rolled to a stop.
“People were yelling and screaming,” said Carlos Matias, 26, a freelance writer. “At first I thought it was a bomb because of the commotion.”
Rescuers arrived and the woman was pulled from under the train, alive. She was in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital Center, the police said.
Amid all the chaos, before anyone noticed or thought to ask his name, the man who, according to witness accounts given to the police, had jumped onto the tracks, like Wesley Autrey before him, was gone.
There is absolutely NO other justified reason. Whatever it is you dropped, it isn't worth your life.
Another Everyday Hero in the Subway, Gone in a Flash
By RAY RIVERA and KAREN ZRAICK
The name Wesley Autrey may have slipped from the popular imagination of New Yorkers, the way everyday heroes do. But in the subterranean world of the city’s subways, his spirit may still be subconsciously inspiring.
Mr. Autrey was the 50-year-old construction worker and father of two who, in 2007, threw himself on top of a man who was having a seizure on the subway tracks and held him down in the shallow trench between the rails as the No. 1 train passed over them.
A city hailed him. A president invited him to the White House.
Then another subway hero came along. This one was named Chad Lindsey, an aspiring actor who jumped on the tracks last year to help a fallen man, then quickly disappeared. He would have remained anonymous if friends had not revealed his role. He later said he had thought about Mr. Autrey as he jumped onto the tracks.
On Monday evening, another subway Samaritan may have come and gone, and the most that anyone can offer about him is that he is an unidentified black man.
After a woman fainted onto the tracks at the Union Square station, witnesses told the police, the man jumped onto the track bed to try to revive her. Seeing the lights of an Eighth Avenue-bound L train, and probably realizing he was out of time, he hastily positioned her body in the trench between the tracks, then hoisted himself out as the train roared in, the police said.
It all happened so fast, said Ana Mercedes Cardenas, a 27-year-old lawyer who was on the Brooklyn-bound L platform and saw the woman face-down on the tracks. The woman, who the police said was 26, was not moving, and a pool of blood was forming. Everyone around rushed over, horrified, Ms. Cardenas said. One man ran upstairs to alert a station agent. Another approached the edge to jump down, she said, but was warned off by other straphangers. They heard the train approach, and panic set in.
One witness, Alex Contreras, 36, said passengers were signaling for the conductor to stop the train, but to no avail.
Five cars passed over the woman before the train rolled to a stop.
“People were yelling and screaming,” said Carlos Matias, 26, a freelance writer. “At first I thought it was a bomb because of the commotion.”
Rescuers arrived and the woman was pulled from under the train, alive. She was in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital Center, the police said.
Amid all the chaos, before anyone noticed or thought to ask his name, the man who, according to witness accounts given to the police, had jumped onto the tracks, like Wesley Autrey before him, was gone.
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That said, it's still awesome hearing about people risking their own lives for total strangers.
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This isn't impossible: the London Underground Jubilee line has barriers. But it's nontrivial and not cheap. Most of the Underground lines don't have it. Nor does the Montreal metro. (As far as I know, neither do Toronto, Paris, or Hong Kong, but my information on each of those is several years old.)
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Whoops, you weren't, uh, talking to me. Sorry!
Actually, some platforms in NYC do have railings to keep you from just pitching over everywhere but where the train stops. It's not as good as a real wall would be, but it's something.
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This is information that needs to be posted on the subway walls, and otherwise gotten out to the public. Apparently heroic Wesley Aubrey has proven that there's room for two adult male bodies, one on top of the other, to fit in that trench and be unharmed by the train passing over them.
With the exception, of course, of losing half their hearing to the horrific noise down there, and the comparatively-trivial loss of their dignity when they discover the condition of their pants afterward, and the probability of subsequent traumatic-stress reactions. A small price to pay for keeping all one's limbs.
Important Safety Tip #1: Stay the hell out of the pit, fools!
Important Safety Tip #2: If you're in the pit, can't get out and the train's coming, make like a flatworm in the trench between rails.
Good to know. I will file it with all the other useful survival information I hope to never need to use. Thanks!
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And I thought most people knew that, anyway. The few cases I can think of where people heard the train coming and didn't absolutely panic, they all seem to have come to the idea of getting UNDER the train, away from the wheels.
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