News & Politics - NYC subway savior: Someone had to help

Lexis · 01-04-2007, 10:54 PM

Just when you get depressed about all the bad stuff going on in the world, you read a story like this. Seriously, this guy is incredible - he may not want to be called a hero but I don't think there is another word to describe him.

Quote:

Wesley Autrey said he made a quick decision to jump into a subway track to rescue a stranger from an ongoing train, an act he hopes other New Yorkers would follow.

"I did it out of a split-second reaction. And if I had to do it again, I probably would," he said on CBS' "The Early Show' Thursday. "I was like, 'Wow, I got to go get this guy ... somebody's gotta save this guy but I was the closest one.

"I'm still saying I'm not a hero ... 'cause I believe all New Yorkers should get into that type of mode," the 50-year-old construction worker said. "You should do the right thing."

...

On Tuesday, while waiting for a downtown Manhattan train, Autrey saw Cameron Hollopeter, a 19-year-old film student, suffering from some kind of medical episode. After stumbling down the platform, Hollopeter, of Littleton, Mass., fell onto the tracks with a train on its way into the station.

Autrey, traveling with his two young daughters, knew he had to do something.

"If I let him stay there by himself, he's going to be dismembered," the Navy veteran remembered thinking.

He jumped down to the tracks, a few feet below platform level, and rolled with the young man into a drainage trough — cold, wet and more than a little unpleasant smelling — between the rails as the southbound No. 1 train came into the 137th Street/City College station.

The train's operator saw someone on the tracks and put the emergency brakes on. Some train cars passed over Autrey and Hollopeter with only a couple of inches to spare, but neither man suffered any harm from the incident.

Hollopeter was taken to a nearby hospital; Autrey refused medical attention — and then went to work.

Autrey went by the hospital Wednesday afternoon for a visit with Hollopeter and his family. Afterward, he and Hollopeter's father addressed reporters.

"Mr. Autrey's instinctive and unselfish act saved our son's life," Larry Hollopeter, his voice choking up, said Wednesday.

NYC subway savior: Someone had to help - Yahoo! News