Wesley Autrey, 50, saw a young man fall onto the tracks at a Harlem subway stop Tuesday afternoon and jumped after him, as shocked fellow commuters looked on.
Autrey at first tried to pull the man up out of the tracks. But with a train headed their way, he realized he wouldn’t have enough time.
So instead, he pinned the teenager and himself in the drainage rut between the rails and hoped the oncoming train would pass over them.
The train operator saw them and hit the emergency brakes. Two of the cars passed over the men but neither was hit. Autrey says the train missed them by about two inches and only grazed his cap.
When Autrey and the young man were pulled to safety by emergency workers about 20 minutes later, witnesses cheered. But Autrey, a Navy veteran, says he doesn’t feel he did ‘something spectacular.’
‘I just saw someone who needed help,’ he told The New York Times. ‘I did what I felt was right.’ (CTV.ca News Staff)
Why are some people heroes when they see a need while other people just turn away and pretend they can’t see?
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