Posted on 01/03/2007 7:09:24 AM PST by rface
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(CBS/AP) A quick-thinking commuter saved a teenager who apparently suffered a seizure and fell onto subway tracks in Upper Manhattan, by jumping onto the tracks himself and pushing them both between the rails, beneath the oncoming train.
Cameron Hollopeter, 19, of Littleton, Mass., fell onto the tracks at Broadway’s 137th Street station Tuesday. Another subway passenger, 50-year-old Wesley Autrey of Manhattan, was standing on the platform with his two daughters whom he was taking home so he could go to his construction job.
When Autrey saw Hollopeter fall, he quickly took action and left his daughters to jump on the tracks to bring the man to safety as an oncoming train approached.
"I didn't want the man's body to get run over,” Autrey said. “Plus, I was with my daughters and I didn't want them to see that."
Autrey jumped down onto the tracks and initially tried to pull Hollopeter up to the platform but had to decide whether he could get him up in time to avoid both of them getting hit.
"I was trying to pull him up, but his weight [was too much] plus he was fighting against me — he didn't know who I was,” Autrey told CBS station WCBS-TV.
Autrey said the man was still moving violently from the seizure, so he pulled him into the center of the tracks — away from the high-voltage third rail — and laid on top of him. "The only thing that popped up in my mind was, 'OK, well, go for the gutter,'" Autrey said. "So I dove in, I pinned him down and once the first car ran over us, my thing with him was to keep him still."
The subway trough between the rails, which is used for drainage, is typically about 12 inches deep but can be as shallow as 8 or as deep as 24, a New York City Transit spokesman said.
The train's operator saw someone on the tracks and put the emergency brakes on. Two cars of the train passed over the men — with about 2 inches to spare, Autrey said — before it came to a stop.
Autrey's daughters thought the train had killed their father and the teen, but were relieved to hear their father shout up from under the train that the two were fine.
Hollopeter, a student at the New York Film Academy, was taken to a hospital, where he was in stable condition with only minor injuries.
Hollopeter's stepmother, Rachel Hollopeter, said Autrey was "an angel."
"He was so heroic," she said early Wednesday in a telephone interview. "If he wasn't there, this would be a whole different call."
Onlooker Patricia Brown said Autrey, a Vietnam War veteran, "needs to be recognized as a hero." Others cheered him and hugged him outside the train station.
The incident took place around 12:45 p.m. Service on the line, which runs between the southern tip of Manhattan and the Bronx, was suspended for about 45 minutes.
The question is where is the information about his being a Vietnam veteran coming from. Did he say it? If so, what did he exactly say and is the reporter stating it correctly? Or did the reporter assume, for what ever reason that he was a Vietnam vet?
I bet you are right -- 'in his 50s.'
Well since I won't ever read or link to SeeBS(CBS) did not see that he left them with a capable unkown...... which I still think his actions were and are that of a HERO
Diving onto subway tracks, a Harlem father saved the life of a stranger yesterday when he pinned the flailing man between the rails just seconds before a 370-ton train roared over their entwined bodies. "Please, sir, don't move," Wesley Autrey, 50, said as he shoved his body against Cameron Hollopeter, who had tumbled off the platform after suffering a seizure. "If you move, one of us is going to lose a leg or die." The men, who were jammed face-to-face in a 2-foot depression between the tracks, were unharmed by the No. 1 train that screamed over them, just inches away.
 Wesley Autrey gives onlookers a big smile after his lifesaving heroics. 'I had a split-second decision to make,' he said. |
 Cameron Hollopeter recovers in St. Luke's Hospital yesterday after his brush with death. |
 Wesley Autrey's daughter Syshe waits for his return. |
"It's miraculous," Hollopeter's grandfather Jeff Friedman, 55, said later. "He's sedated, but the doctor said he's going to be okay." Autrey, a construction worker, was having an otherwise ordinary afternoon when he passed through the turnstiles at W.137th St. and Broadway about 12:45 p.m. He was with his daughters, Shuqui, 6, and Syshe, 4, whom he planned to drop off with their mother at Times Square. The military veteran first noticed Hollopeter, a 20-year-old film student, when he collapsed to the platform after the seizure. Autrey said he put a pen in the man's mouth to keep him from swallowing his tongue as two women also ran to his aid.
The convulsions subsided and Hollopeter climbed to his feet - but he then staggered and fell off the downtown platform. "I had a split-second decision to make," Autrey said. "Do I let the train run him over and hear my daughters screaming and see the blood? Or do I jump in?" Knowing a train was likely to pull into the station at any moment, Autrey tried to pull Hollopeter up. But the fallen man started fighting his rescuer, knocking him dangerously close to the third rail and its deadly 600 volts. Autrey told the Daily News that after only a few seconds, he saw the lights on the front of the No. 1 train bearing down on him and pushed the man into the trough.
"He was fighting and pushing against me, so I laid on top of him," Autrey said. "The train was probably 2 inches off my back." Transit officials said the train operator reported to the rail control center that he saw a person on the roadbed upon entering the station. He made an emergency stop and found the men under the second car of the 10-car train. "Am I dead?" Hollopeter asked, according to the man who saved his life. "Am I dead?" "I said, 'No, we're under the train,'" Autrey recalled.
"'You're touching me. You feel me touching you? We're very much alive.'" Autrey, who was trapped under the train for 20 minutes before workers turned off the power, said he could hear his daughters screaming. "My daddy!" they hollered. "My daddy!" Witnesses said Autrey began shouting at straphangers to be quiet so he could pass a message to his kids. The platform grew silent. "Let my daughters know that I'm okay and that the man is okay!" he shouted, as onlookers broke into applause.
After the power was turned off, Autrey crawled to safety and used a step on the back of one of the subway cars to climb to safety. He emerged with grime on his right sleeve, hip and back. He said a grease stain on his hat came from being grazed by the bottom of the train.
"I thought he was going to get hit by the train," Shuqui said of her dad. "I thought he was going to be dead, but he's alive. "FDNY officials said firefighters helped pull Hollopeter up before paramedics took him to St.Luke's Hospital. Autrey was treated at the scene and then greeted by another round of applause and slaps on the back before he went to visit Hollopeter. Hollopeter, of Harvard, Mass., is an aspiring director and a freshman at the New York Film Academy. His grandfather wasn't aware of an existing medical problem that resulted in the seizure, he said. "On behalf of the whole family, I want to say thank you," Friedman said of Autrey. "I want to shake his hand." Friedman was still stunned hours after the accident. "For someone who got run over by a train, he looks pretty good," he said of his grandson. "He's a talented writer, but even he couldn't write the screenplay any better."
I'm glad that's not my last name... >>
You can say that again.
Unbelievable! What a man.
Pray for W and Our Troops
He could be a "Vietnam-Era Veteran", which is legally defined as anyone who saw even one day of active duty anywhere between 1964 and May 7, 1975.
Agreed!! Great story.
"I'm glad that's not my last name"
That's funny, heh, heh. Not sure anyone got it. The man who saved him is a hero, and I hope they honor him in some way ASAP.
Could he have lied about his age?
Nice!
Man saves teen who fell onto subway tracks in NYC
Fox News | 1/02/2007 | AP
Posted on 01/02/2007 6:57:13 PM EST by luv2ski
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1761495/posts
...Gates....he may be a lot of things, but I don't think "pussy" is one of them.... look at his bio and see what he's been involved with in the past.... you may like what you see.
Rumsfeld's job was done. Rumsfeld did good things, but I think he served his country and the President for as long as he could and remain effective.
I've seen 17 year old Marines before.... I think some may have been younger.....or at least acted younger.
Oh, and he's not a "snitch". Not even to save his hide.
I'll take him over some other bureaucrat.
Thanks for the ping, Coleus.
Bump for courage!
It is clear that with your comment you are a racist pesimist that does not value human life. Good day!
Sometimes you just have to laugh...
Man Is Rescued by Stranger on Subway Tracks (Check the pic of his cap!)
I saw him on TV also. What a guy! And so humble. I love your idea of the scholarship! Perhaps someone who lives in NYC could get such an idea drummed up in the local media.
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