See, now this?

[conuly]

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.

Comments

[flamingtoilet.livejournal.com]

Now, I'm not from New York, and I've never ridden a subway. But really, you'd think they'd have a way to keep people from falling onto the tracks by now. From what I've seen in movies and TV, it looks awful easy.

That said, it's still awesome hearing about people risking their own lives for total strangers.

[conuly]

It's not as easy as all that - I've certainly never witnessed it! - but yes, I do wish we had the money (lots of money...) to upgrade and enclose the platforms separate from the tunnels. It'd stop people from dropping things onto the track, and it'd also make it easier to heat/cool the platforms.

[redbird]

This would require barriers on all the platforms, with doors aligned to the train doors. That in turn would require standardizing train cars sufficiently that the doors of all trains opened at the appropriate places.

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.)

[conuly]

I know. This is why I said I wish, and not "I have no idea why they don't just do this already argh!" : )

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.

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

Knowing that the tracks are electrified seems to be a fairly good deterrent against people jumping onto Underground tracks to retrieve items. Almost all of the fatalities are trespass (usually vandalism-related) or suicide (with a few weird ones thrown in for good measure - I think two people a year die after being pushed onto the tracks by strangers?).