Balls and quick thinking

[J Larsen]

Rescuer pins fallen man as subway passes over them

NEW YORK (AP) -- A quick-thinking commuter saved a young man who fell on the subway tracks by pushing him down into a trough between the rails, allowing an approaching train to pass over them, police said.

The 18-year-old man had some kind of medical problem Tuesday and fell onto the tracks, which are a few feet below platform level, police said. Wesley Autrey, of Manhattan, saw him fall, jumped down onto the tracks after him and rolled with him into the rut between the rails as a southbound train was coming in.

Autrey said he initially tried to pull the man up to the platform but had to decide whether he could get him up in time to avoid both of them getting hit.

"I just chose to dive on top of him and pin him down and pin myself down," he said. (Watch how shallow the rut is)

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.

The subway trough, 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.

Neither man was hit by the train, police said, and Autrey, who had his two young daughters traveling with him, refused medical attention. The rescued man, whose name had not been released, was taken to a hospital, where he was in stable condition.

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.

[rostasi]

CBS News report video is here

[Joe G]

Awesome!

[sheldonm]

...damn, balls is correct (those trains are MOVIN')! Good to see some good news!

m~

[Scott Dolan]

Holy moly!!

My hat is off for Mr. Autrey!

[J Larsen]

They should offer a Nobel prize for things that make you say "DAMN!" and give this guy the first one.

[patricia]

WOW!! Amazing what people are capable of doing in these circumstances. Good for Mr Autrey. His thought process is what we all hope we are capable of, but we'll never know.

It was the difference between saving the man's life and just being able to say that he was there when somebody died.

Edited January 3, 2007 by patricia

[Eric]

WOW!!!!!!!!

[Jim Alfredson]

Now that's a hero!!!

[Alexander]

Exactly. In my book, a hero is someone who puts him or herself in danger in the hope that it will make a difference. I don't consider people who *find* themselves in danger to be heroes. Their handling of the situation can be admirable, but to be a "hero" one must have the option *not* to act.

[patricia]

Exactly. In my book, a hero is someone who puts him or herself in danger in the hope that it will make a difference. I don't consider people who *find* themselves in danger to be heroes. Their handling of the situation can be admirable, but to be a "hero" one must have the option *not* to act.

Not acting is the most common response.

That's what sets Mr. Autrey apart.

But, I would guess that even he didn't know he was capable of such heroism, until the situation presented itself.

It seems to have been an instinctual reaction, of which I guess we all wonder whether we would be capable.

Most of us would not.

Even Mr. Autrey would probably have said he wouldn't have. But................there he was, saving another man's life.

And unintenional hero, but a hero none the less. Good for him.

Edited January 3, 2007 by patricia

[DTMX]

They should offer a Nobel prize for things that make you say "DAMN!" and give this guy the first one.

I heard that!

[PHILLYQ]

I ride the NYC subway to work and home, and I know that the space the two guys were in is miniscule. A little movement one way or another and someone loses a limb or their life. Hats off(Mr. Autrey had some grease on his hat from the train passing over)to a genuine hero in an age where the word is horribly overused.

[Chuck Nessa]

Balls and quick thinking are more frequent partners than dicks and quick thinking.

[patricia]

Balls and quick thinking are more frequent partners than dicks and quick thinking.

No truer words, Chuck.

[AllenLowe]

well, it depends what those dicks are thinking about - we are talking about detectives, I assume -

[Teasing the Korean]

According to a CNN report last night, Donald Trump gave him $10K and the film school gave him $5K and are offering free tuition for his kids.

[J Larsen]

Mr. Autrey is back in the news:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

I'm posting the link instead of copying the story so that you don't miss out on the cute picture of his daughters.

[Brownian Motion]

The New York Times

Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

January 7, 2007

Why Our Hero Leapt Onto the Tracks and We Might Not

By CARA BUCKLEY

MAYBE some people are more hard-wired for heroism than others. Like, for example, Wesley Autrey, the man behind a stunning rescue last week in a Manhattan subway station.

People wondered, because they had asked themselves, “Could I have done what he did?” and very often the answer was no. Mr. Autrey, 50, a construction worker and Navy veteran, leapt in front of a train to rescue a stranger who had suffered a seizure and fallen onto the tracks. He covered the stranger’s body with his own as the train passed overhead. Both men lived.

Mr. Autrey, who left two young daughters on the platform when he jumped, later chalked up his actions to a simple compulsion to help another in distress.

But is there something in Mr. Autrey that the rest of us lack? Probably not, experts say. Except for sociopaths, humans are built to feel and act out of empathy, said Stephen G. Post, a professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University’s medical school and co-author of “Why Good Things Happen to Good People,” scheduled to be published in May. Social support has always been important to survival, and people with strong social networks thrive more than those who are isolated.

New science also suggests that people have “mirror neurons,” which make them feel what someone else is experiencing, be it joy or distress.

When Mr. Autrey saw the stranger, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, tumble onto the tracks, his brain reacted just as anyone else’s would. His thalamus, which absorbs sensory information, registered the fall, and sent the information to other parts of the brain for processing, said Gregory L. Fricchione, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Mr. Autrey’s amygdala, the part of the brain that mediates fear responses, was activated and sent sensory information to the motor cortex, which sent it down for emotional processing. His anterior cingulate, a sort of brain within the brain that helps people make choices, kicked in, helping trigger his decision about how to act, Dr. Fricchione said.

But what happened next is harder to explain.

“Propensities to help others are not necessarily based on rational calculations; in fact, they often cannot be, because rational calculations would have been too slow in this particular case,” David Sloan Wilson, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York at Binghamton, wrote in an e-mail message. “Instead, they become impulses that are followed spontaneously, either by virtue of genetic disposition or childhood/cultural training.” Still, Dr. Wilson said Mr. Autrey exhibited an extraordinarily high degree of “other-oriented” behavior. “He’s a rarity,” Dr. Wilson said.

That Mr. Autrey served in the Navy most likely played a role, too — he had been trained to act quickly in adverse situations. Acts like jumping in front of trains to rescue strangers are easier for people who are prepared, said Michael McCullough, a psychology professor at the University of Miami.

One of the curious aspects about Mr. Autrey’s deed is that he jumped even though his daughters, ages 4 and 6, were at his side. Normally, experts say, the power of the parent-child dynamic would overwhelm any tendency to put yourself in harm’s way to rescue a stranger. Then again, suggested Dr. Fricchione, people who already feel attachment, like the kind toward their children, may be predisposed to act more altruistically to others. Mr. Autrey was also one of three people who helped Mr. Hollopeter when he first collapsed, convulsing, before tripping into the tracks. An empathetic connection was most likely forged then, too.

Considering that people tend to act more altruistically toward those who fall within their perceived group, Dr. Post said, it was notable that differences in race — Mr. Autrey is black, Mr. Hollopeter is white — didn’t enter the picture.

“Not only is he going beyond the narrow interest that we all seem to have toward our children, but he is reaching out toward a shared common humanity. And he’s doing it across a racial line,” Dr. Post said. “And I think that’s really impressive.”

No single factor explains heroism, said Samuel P. Oliner, a sociology professor at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif. Yet in interviewing Holocaust rescuers and 911 responders, he found that people who acted heroically often came from more nurturing families and were imbued with an ethic of caring, empathy and compassion.

“The other people, the bystanders, are not bad people,” Dr. Oliner said. “But they have been cut from a slightly different cloth.”

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Struth!

MG

[ejp626]

A very interesting story, though how inspiring is unclear. I'd like to think I would have helped the person on the platform -- but jump down on the tracks -- definitely not. And particularly not with my two children standing there. I do have two very young children myself and just wouldn't take such a risk. But I am glad it all came out well.