Mar 19, 2009 6:38 am US/Eastern
First NYC Subway Hero Of 2009 Unmasked
Actor Rescues Fallen 60-Year-Old From Oncoming Train
Humble Hero: "It Was Quite A New York Day"
Reporting
Jay Dow
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Chad Lindsey is about as humble a hero as one will ever meet. There's a certain 60-year-old man somewhere who's thankful for him just the way he is.
CBS
A young actor was the talk of the town on Wednesday -- and not because of a performance on stage, but for a selfless act of bravery.
He risked his own life to save a man who fell on the subway tracks.
Chad Lindsey does not consider himself a hero.
"It's so simple. If you see someone trip and fall down, you help them up," Lindsey said.
But when that someone has just fallen off a Penn Station subway platform -- with a train approaching -- it's easy to understand why CBS 2 HD wanted to catch up with the 33-year old stage actor.
Lindsey performed his good deed for a perfect stranger on Monday afternoon.
"He kind of came at the platform too fast and kind of like wiggled around on the edge a little bit -- like in slow motion. And then all of a sudden we're all like, OK, he's falling in. And he just slammed his head on the rail, really hard," Lindsey said.
"I didn't really make a decision. I just took off my backpack and jumped in there because I knew that the train was coming because it just felt full on the platform."
With the train quickly coming around the bend and toward the platform, Lindsey decided he was not going to try his luck, and follow in the footsteps of another subway hero.
"I kept thinking of that guy that had to lay down in the tracks and I was like, no, I was like I'm getting this guy outta here, and then I'm gonna jump outta here."
So with the Wesley Autrey subway hero scenario no longer an option …
"I grabbed him and threw him up, his torso up, on the side of the platform," Lindsey said.
He was certainly the right man for the job. He's currently performing in an off-Broadway play that requires him to repeatedly lift up a character that can't walk.
"I complain about it all the time, but apparently it had me in good shape to deal with somebody else who was unconscious and unable to help me," Lindsey said.
The ordeal ended with the fallen commuter -- now identified by police as 60-year-old Theodore Larson of the Bronx -- being taken to a hospital.
And Lindsey, well, he just went on about his business and got on another train.
"Five or six women opened their purse and got like handy wipes out and handed them to me so I could wipe myself off."
And he has yet to pat himself on the back.
Regarding his adventure, the humble hero said simply: "It was quite a New York day."
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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