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Wesley Autrey, NYC Subway Hero

[Updates here and here.]

This is so far the best story of 2007.

Wesley Autrey, a 50-year-old construction worker and Navy veteran ... was waiting for the downtown local at 137th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 12:45 p.m. He was taking his two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, home before work.

Nearby, a man collapsed, his body convulsing. Mr. Autrey and two women rushed to help, he said. The man, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, managed to get up, but then stumbled to the platform edge and fell to the tracks, between the two rails.

The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. “I had to make a split decision,” Mr. Autrey said.

So he made one, and leapt.

Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train’s brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time.

Five cars rolled overhead before the train stopped, the cars passing inches from his head, smudging his blue knit cap with grease. Mr. Autrey heard onlookers’ screams. “We’re O.K. down here,” he yelled, “but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K.” He heard cries of wonder, and applause.

The incident is reminiscent of one that took place a year ago, when stockbroker Daniel Silverio survived a fall onto the 6 Train tracks at the Wall Street station, also by squishing himself into the trough between the rails.

Over the year that's passed since the Silverio incident, I've more than once found myself gazing down at the tracks and gauging that little trough, thinking how one would have to remain perfectly flat and motionless while the train passed inches above.  The fact that Autrey was able to pull this off while lying on top of Hollopeter is all the more astounding.

The link is now dead, but following the Silverio incident, amNY printed an excerpt from the Worst Case Scenario Handbook's chapter on surviving subway falls, noting several alternative remedies (each of which is somewhat less feasible when also tending to an incapacitated victim, as Autrey was).

"The immediate place I would like would be is the space between the tracks and platform; there is an overhang you can crawl into..."

If that won't work, Borgenicht suggests carefully crossing over the electrified third rail and standing in the 2-foot-wide space between the columns dividing the tracks.

Borgenicht also recommends running along the tracks past the point the train would normally stop to open its doors. Alcoves there could provide safe haven.

Previously:  Indiana Jones Takes Manhattan

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Wesley Autrey, NYC Subway Hero

[Updates here and here.]

This is so far the best story of 2007.

Wesley Autrey, a 50-year-old construction worker and Navy veteran ... was waiting for the downtown local at 137th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 12:45 p.m. He was taking his two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, home before work.

Nearby, a man collapsed, his body convulsing. Mr. Autrey and two women rushed to help, he said. The man, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, managed to get up, but then stumbled to the platform edge and fell to the tracks, between the two rails.

The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. “I had to make a split decision,” Mr. Autrey said.

So he made one, and leapt.

Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train’s brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time.

Five cars rolled overhead before the train stopped, the cars passing inches from his head, smudging his blue knit cap with grease. Mr. Autrey heard onlookers’ screams. “We’re O.K. down here,” he yelled, “but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K.” He heard cries of wonder, and applause.

The incident is reminiscent of one that took place a year ago, when stockbroker Daniel Silverio survived a fall onto the 6 Train tracks at the Wall Street station, also by squishing himself into the trough between the rails.

Over the year that's passed since the Silverio incident, I've more than once found myself gazing down at the tracks and gauging that little trough, thinking how one would have to remain perfectly flat and motionless while the train passed inches above.  The fact that Autrey was able to pull this off while lying on top of Hollopeter is all the more astounding.

The link is now dead, but following the Silverio incident, amNY printed an excerpt from the Worst Case Scenario Handbook's chapter on surviving subway falls, noting several alternative remedies (each of which is somewhat less feasible when also tending to an incapacitated victim, as Autrey was).

"The immediate place I would like would be is the space between the tracks and platform; there is an overhang you can crawl into..."

If that won't work, Borgenicht suggests carefully crossing over the electrified third rail and standing in the 2-foot-wide space between the columns dividing the tracks.

Borgenicht also recommends running along the tracks past the point the train would normally stop to open its doors. Alcoves there could provide safe haven.

Previously:  Indiana Jones Takes Manhattan