Courage in the Subway?!

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Bystander, seizure victim survive dive under train

(Newsday posted the following article by Andrew Strickler on its website on January 3.)

NEW YORK – When Wesley Autrey saw a man suffering a seizure fall onto the subway tracks, he jumped in to save the stranger.

As he tried to pull the man to safety at the Harlem stop, Autrey looked up.

"I saw the two white lights, and said, ‘Whoa, you ain’t got no time,’ " Autrey said.

Autrey, 50, grabbed Cameron Hollopeter, 20, in a bear hug and the pair landed in a shallow trough filled with dirty water.

The screeching train missed the pair by the barest of margins.

“In my mind, I believed - I hoped - the train had enough clearance,” Autrey said. “It didn’t hit my head; it just nicked my cap.”

Wesley estimated they were under the train for 20 minutes before the power to an adjacent track was cut so emergency workers could safely remove them.

Hollopeter was hospitalized for treatment for the seizure and minor injuries.

“For someone who got run over by a train, he looks pretty damn good to me,” family member Jeff Friedman said. “Miracles do happen, don’t they?”

Friedman, 55, of New Jersey, said Hollopeter was his daughter’s stepson and was studying to be a film director at New York Film Academy.

“He’s a talented writer, but he couldn’t have written the screenplay any better,” Friedman said.

Of Autrey, Friedman said: “I’d like to buy him a drink, maybe a hundred drinks.”

The incident occurred Tuesday afternoon as Autrey and Hollopeter waited separately for a downtown train.

Autrey, who was taking his two young daughters to meet their mother before heading to his job at a construction site, said he saw Hollopeter fall on his back on the platform and begin to convulse.

After running to a transit

2

…I saw that NYC subway incident on the evening news this evening and from the illustration of what was done…I was shocked and wondered how the traction motors cleared the men underneath between the rails…!!

3

In another news story that I read about this incident, a NYC subway worker was quoted as saying that the trench between the rails varies between 8" and 24". The comment led me to believe that the two men were between two adjacent sets of tracks.

The story that LC has posted here leads me to believe otherwise.

Modelcar, you saw it on the news. Do you know for sure if the two men were directly under the train? Or is it possible that they were in the trench that separates adjacent tracks?

4

I heard a similer story a few years ago.

5

I’ve seen the story on the news and read the accounts- yes, they were between the rails, directly under the train. They had to shut off the third rail so the two could crawl or get pulled out from underneath the train.

6

Traction motors sit a little higher than you think…a good rule of thumb is to look at the pilot plate height above the rails…one of it purposes is to push debris away so what ever it hits will not hit the traction motor case.

In fact, we usually toss the brake shoes and other junk we find in the yards footpaths into the middle of the row so we don’t have trip hazards.

Most of the traction motors on freight units sit higher than the rail head by several inches.

Still, the guy had a lot of courage doing what he did.

7

Ed mentioned the height of the traction motors as one factor. The other factor is that the rails on most subways are set on half-ties which are in turn set in concrete. There is a trench between the half-ties that is several inches lower than the top of the half-ties.

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Datafever…The illustration {graphics}, NBC Nightly News showed…The 2 men were *between the rails…*and the train passed over them…!!

9

Star turn for hero of subway

Saint wins city medal and cash

BY MICHAEL SAUL
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Subway hero Wesley Autrey with David Letterman last night. Below,
Mayor Bloomberg presents city’s highest civic award to Autrey as
daughters Shuqui (right) and Syshe and other city officials look
on.

Subway saint Wesley Autrey didn’t save a stranger’s life for the
rewards - but he’s getting plenty of them anyway.
The 50-year-old construction worker who leaped onto Harlem train
tracks Tuesday to save a young student was showered yesterday with
free MetroCards for a year, a $10,000 check from Donald Trump, a
week-long trip to Disney World and the city’s highest civic award.

“The word hero I think we use much too frequently, but somebody like
you, you really are,” Mayor Bloomberg told Autrey, who was given the
Bronze Medallion during a ceremony at City Hall.

Bloomberg said Autrey “makes all of us proud to be New Yorkers.”

Autrey earned his fame when he jumped onto Cameron Hollopeter, 20,
who had tumbled off the 138th St. platform, and pinned both of them
in a shallow well as the train passed above.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Executive Director Elliot
Sander called Autrey’s act “a death-defying act of bravery. We truly
have not seen anything like this.”

Hollopeter was not seriously hurt but is still recovering at St.
Luke’s Hospital, where his family issued a statement, saying
Autrey “deserves all of the attention and the accolades that are now
being bestowed upon him.”

Autrey, who was accompanied at City Hall by his daughters Shuqui, 6,
and Syshe, 4, both of whom witnessed their father’s bravery, said
he’s grateful for all the recognition and gifts.

"Good things happen

10

By way of a really unrelated response, I grew up in New York from 1950 to 1974 and frankly you can keep the place…dirty, smelly, rude people, overpriced everything, etc., etc.

Just for what it’s worth.

11

I spent 3 days in Manhattan two years ago doing all the tourist things, Madison Square Gardens, Radio City Music hall, Broadway play, subways, and Central Park, walking to Brooklyn, etc. The people there were as nice as people right here in Aledo. Go figure.

12

Amazing. I always wondered if you could get down on a train track (in an emergency situation, of course) low enough and the train would clear you. I guess it’s possible on some trains!

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I really don’t think that it would work in most situations. I tend to think that CSSHEGEWISCH has the best explanation of what allowed them to survive in this case.