Jan 12, 2007 8:35 pm US/Eastern
Another Subway Hero Makes 'J' Train Save
EMT In Right Place At Right Time On Thursday
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
It was another day, another selfless act of heroism in New York City.
Emergency medical technician Daniel Fitzpatrick was waiting for the "J" train at Flushing Avenue after work on Thursday when someone shouted a woman was about to jump. The 38-year-old saw the woman climbing down to a utility catwalk near the tracks at the elevated station, just as a train was coming.
He grabbed her and kept her pinned to railing on the side of the track bed. The woman kept pushing him back, and he barely escaped injury himself.
As he describes it, this is actually a tale of two heroes.
"Prior to the train entering the station, the young man I'd been speaking to, who I didn't get a chance to thank, with a lot of disregard for his own safety, reached in an pulled my head back," Fitzpatrick said. "It was the only thing I didn't realize was in the path of the oncoming train."
Fitzpatrick held the woman back as she struggled to reach the electrified third rail.
Police arrived and took her to Bellevue Hospital.
Incidentally, Fitzpatrick said he joined the FDNY after 9/11because he didn't want to feel powerless when he saw people in danger.
The rescue Thursday came just over a week after 50-year-old Wesley Autrey saved a young man who'd had a seizure from an oncoming train in Harlem.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
