Mass transit is awesome. Subways are awesome. I spend a lot of my time riding (and waiting for) trains.
As a result, I stare at a lot of train tracks and end up thinking about subway heroes -- those people who dive onto the tracks to save fellow mass transit-riders in peril. Here's a list of five relatively recent subway heroes. If you know of more, link me in the comments!
SUBWAY HERO #1: Chad Lindsey
This actor was minding his own business at Penn Station when a person waiting for a train collapsed and fell onto the tracks. Lindsay, starring in a play that required him to lift and carry another actor frequently, jumped onto the tracks and lifted the unconscious man out.
Then he got on the next train and left. Heroism and humility -- can you beat it?
Maybe he tried to keep a low profile because he saw what happened to Subway Hero #3 (see below), but a friend ratted him out, which led to some discussion of whether or not he had "smoldering" good looks.
SUBWAY HERO #2: Ismael Feneque
Lisa Donath collapsed onto the tracks at 191st Street and was saved, but didn't know who saved her:
On the morning before Thanksgiving witnesses say 24-year-old Lisa Donath collapsed face first onto the tracks of the 191st Street train station, knocking out her teeth and breaking her jaw and eye socket.
"I was just standing here and I started getting really hot, so I unbuttoned my coat and I started getting really dizzy," Donath said. "So I leaned up against this pillar and that was the last thing that I remembered."
But then a stranger jumped in to lift her to safety just seconds before a train pulled in.
Her savior remained anonymous until a local CBS affiliate helped out:
Lisa Donath choked back tears and wrapped her arms tightly around Ismael Feneque, who through wcbstv.com contacted CBS 2 HD to confirm that he was in fact the man who pulled Donath from the tracks on the day before Thanksgiving.
Donath recalled that morning, when after donating blood, she was on her way to work waiting for the 1-train at the 191st Street station in Washington Heights, when she grew weak and dizzy.
SUBWAY HERO #3: Wesley Autrey
Mr. Autrey may be the most famous subway hero in recent years. See if this rings a bell:
Police said Mr. Hollopeter, a first-year film student at the New York Film Academy, had suffered a seizure, which sent him convulsing off the platform and onto the tracks, where Mr. Autrey held him down as the train rumbled just inches above them.
Moments after the train came to a halt, Mr. Autrey recounted yesterday, Mr. Hollopeter asked if he was dead. "I said, 'You are very much alive, but if you move you'll kill the both of us.' " Both men emerged from the episode with little more than bruises, but Mr. Autrey also emerged a star.
Soon enough, though, there were problems. The five-minute walk from his apartment to the subway took twenty minutes now. People stopped him for pictures, hugs, and solicitations for donations--"I need, give me, I want," Wesley says.
Wesley's new life started to feel like a job, and one he wasn't well prepared for. "It's scary. I'm not used to this constant fame. I have people pushing me straight in front of a podium with a thousand eyes on me. Everybody's looking at you and wondering, What is he gonna say?"
He started to worry about money. You can't pay the rent with a Jeep. And given the value of some of the gifts, the IRS would be watching. A friend at the union told him people could sue him now. His custody and support arrangement with the girls' mother could be called into question. He might have to think about setting up tax shelters, and trusts for the kids. "Some people think I'm a millionaire," he says. "So I'm a little worried about my own life and even worried about my kids, you know--someone might try to kidnap them."
SUBWAY HERO #4: Hannukah Hero
A Muslim stranger saved two Jewish subway riders on the Q train -- they were being beaten up for saying "Happy Hannukah."
It all began when Adler, his girlfriend, Maria Parsheva, and two other pals boarded the subway at Canal Street bound for Brooklyn and someone in another group wished them "Merry Christmas."
Adler and his pal Angelica Krischanovich responded: "Happy Hanukkah."
The hero was later honored by the ADL!
SUBWAY HERO #5: Veeramuthu Kalimuthu
A Queens man jumped onto the tracks to save a man who fell onto the tracks, drunk on his way to detox:
He admitted being drunk when he fell off the northbound platform but said he was heading to the hospital for detox. "I was on my way to St. Luke's anyway, to get treatment," he said. "I just didn't plan on getting there in a stretcher."
He doesn't remember much of the incident because he was semiconscious."The last thing I remember is reaching down for a quarter," he said. "It was very frightening, and very dirty. All my clothes were black."
SUBWAY COMIC RELIEF:
These guys: