Wesley Autrey
| Wesley Autrey | |
|---|---|
Autrey at the 2007 State of the Union Address
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| Born | February 6, 1956 |
| Other names | Subway Samaritan, Subway Superman, The Hero of Harlem, Subway Hero |
| Occupation | New York City construction worker/Navy veteran |
Wesley Autrey (born February 6, 1956) (dubbed by the media as the "Subway Samaritan", "Subway Superman", "The Hero of Harlem" and as the "Subway Hero") is a New York City construction worker and Navy veteran who in 2007 achieved international recognition after he saved Cameron Hollopeter, a 20-year-old film student who had suffered a seizure and fallen onto the tracks, from being struck by a New York City Subway train. He is on the 2007 edition of Time 100 most influential people in the world list, made by Time magazine; the text about him was written by Donald Trump.
On January 2, 2007, Autrey was waiting for a train at the 137th Street – City College subway station in Manhattan with his two young daughters. At around 12:45 p.m., he and two women noticed a young man, Cameron Hollopeter, having a seizure. Autrey borrowed a pen and used it to keep Hollopeter's jaw open. Following the seizure, Hollopeter stumbled from the platform, falling onto the tracks.
As Hollopeter lay on the tracks, Autrey saw the lights of an oncoming 1 train. As one of the women held Autrey's daughters back away from the edge of the platform, Autrey dove onto the tracks. He thought he would be able to take Hollopeter off the tracks, but he realized there was not enough time to drag Hollopeter away. Instead, he protected Hollopeter by throwing himself over Hollopeter's body in a drainage trench between the tracks, where he held him down. Though the operator of the train applied the brakes, all but two cars still passed over them, close enough to leave grease on his cap.
Autrey told The New York Times “I don’t feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help. I did what I felt was right.” Wesley is a member of the LIUNA union, Local 79, and credits his training with having helped him make the split-second decision: “Since I do construction work with Local 79, we work in confined spaces a lot. So I looked, and my judgment was pretty right. The train did have enough room for me.”
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