The Man!
Would you jump on to the subway track facing a speeding train to rescue another of the species who happened to fall over there due to a seizure?
Probably, you’d think twice, especially if you have two kids cuddled with you at that time!
But, Wesley Autrey, a 50-year-old construction worker and Navy veteran of Big Apple did it!
Now over to the New York Times story:
Mr. Autrey was waiting for the downtown local at 137th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 12:45 p.m. He was taking his two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, home before work.
Nearby, a 20-year old man collapsed and fell to the tracks, between the two rails.
The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. “I had to make a split decision”, Mr. Autrey said.
So he made one, and leapt.
Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train’s brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time.
Five cars rolled overhead before the train stopped, the cars passing inches from his head, smudging his blue knit cap with grease. Mr. Autrey heard onlookers’ screams. “We’re O.K. down here”, he yelled, “but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K”. He heard cries of wonder, and applause.
Power was cut, and workers got them out. Mr. Hollopeter, a student at the New York Film Academy, was taken to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. He had only bumps and bruises, said his grandfather, Jeff Friedman. The police said it appeared that Mr. Hollopeter had suffered a seizure.
Mr. Autrey refused medical help, because, he said, nothing was wrong. He did visit Mr. Hollopeter in the hospital before heading to his night shift. “I don’t feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help”, Mr. Autrey said. “I did what I felt was right”.
Here is the man who risked his life to save another:
