Posted on 01/13/2007 6:27:37 AM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(CBS) NEW YORK -- New York City has another subway hero to brag about. An off-duty emergency medical technician saved a woman who apparently intended to throw herself in front of a subway train in Brooklyn, almost ending up on the tracks as the woman tried to fight him off, the fire department said.
"It was pretty close," 38-year-old Daniel Fitzpatrick said Friday of his near-encounter with an oncoming train. "It was too close for me, put it that way."
The Thursday rescue came just over a week after 50-year-old Wesley Autrey saved a young man, and himself, from an oncoming train by placing his body over the teenager in a pit between the tracks.
Fitzpatrick found himself similarly thrust into danger as he was headed home to Franklin Square on Long Island Thursday. He was wearing his FDNY jacket when someone at the Flushing Avenue stop on the J line tapped him on the shoulder and alerted him to an apparently distraught woman.
"FDNY, I think this lady is going to jump," Fitzpatrick said the stranger told him.
Fitzpatrick said he tried to get the woman's attention, but she walked away. Not long afterward, he saw her climbing down to a utility catwalk near the tracks at the elevated station, just as a train was coming.
He went after her, grabbing her and keeping her pinned to railing on the side of the track bed. The woman kept pushing him back, and the train nearly hit his head, he said. Another straphanger grabbed his head and protected it.
Police arrived on the scene of the incident, which occurred around 4 p.m., and took the woman to a hospital. Officials Friday said they had no information on the woman's condition.
Fitzpatrick "displayed great courage in the face of danger and saved a woman from certain death," fire Chief of Department Salvatore Cassano said Friday in a release. "He, and the civilian who assisted, should be commended."
Fitzpatrick has been on the job as an EMT for the fire department for nearly three years and is training to be a paramedic. Prior to joining the emergency rescue services, he was a corporate trust officer.
He said he didn't know who the man was who helped protect his head.
"I thanked him, but I've been trying to reach out to him to thank him in person," he said. "I really appreciate what he did for me."
He said Friday that he's physically fine.
"I think I had a little too much adrenaline," he said.
It remains to be seen whether he'll get the attention Autrey received, which included a $10,000 check from real estate mogul Donald Trump. But Fitzpatrick said that's not a concern — he's just happy things worked out.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Wow. Amazing.
I am always impressed, also, by the way New Yorkers will get involved and do something. Many people in other parts of the country will not do this, but New Yorkers do look out for each other.
When someone keeps someone else from getting run over by a subway, he's a hero and gets lauded and receives national attention, but when an armed citizen keeps another from getting killed by a criminal, there is no hero worship, and hardly any coverage in the media except to say "the gun has been seized to see if it was stolen, and the DA is deciding whether or not to press charges."
Heros walk among us. Of that, I am happy to know and be reassured of.
You have got to be kidding.
No, I grew up there and lived there off and on for most of my life. If you want to see a place where people really ignore other people, look at California. Coldest people I ever met out there.
True. It's the outsiders we hate.
Welcome to New York! :-)
Now get out.
"It remains to be seen whether he'll get the attention Autrey received, which included a $10,000 check from real estate mogul Donald Trump."
So now doing the right thing and saving someone is a competition?
This writer should be shot be being an idiot!
An excellent point!
I wonder how many law suits are filed against the good samaritan for their selfless acts - because they infringed on some "right" the person with a death wish has.
Sorry. I have travelled almost this entire country. I never got the feeling that NY'ers cared about anything but their own self. I never got invitations to spend the night like I did in Wichita, Amarillo, Owatonna, MN, and various other places while I was there on a job.
Driving in NY can be hell unless you get very aggressive which is not really conducive to friendliness. NY is just one big competitive world and outsiders are very rarely, unless they have something to offer in return, made to feel welcome.
Funny, I saw the comment about subway hero and immediately I thought that someone had taken out the trash a la Bernie Goetz.
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