I want to hear more news like this:

• Man Is Rescued by Stranger on Subway Tracks – New York Times

A man was having a seizure and fell onto the tracks. Wesley Autrey jumped down, moved the man and himself into the foot-deep space between the tracks. The subway couldn’t stop in time and rolled over them. Thanks to Wesley, they were both unharmed. See that smudge on his hat? It was from the train.

Here in Salt Lake City, the subway is a sandwich shop with crappy bread. Utah residents don’t think about falling off the train platforms and whether they would save someone who did. This story sounds so surreal and part of a movie, but it’s real life and a father of two daughters (both of whom were with him that day), jumped off the platform, faced an oncoming train and lived to tell about it.

Sending good karma your way. Good form, Wesley, good form!

Via: Wesley Autrey jumped in front of an oncoming subway train to save the life of a man who had fallen on the tracks (kottke.org)

Just in case the NYT article is under lock and key…

It was every subway rider’s nightmare, times two.

Would you jump onto the subway tracks to save a stranger?

Who has ridden along New York’s 656 miles of subway lines and not wondered: “What if I fell to the tracks as a train came in? What would I do?”

And who has not thought: “What if someone else fell? Would I jump to the rescue?”

Wesley Autrey, a 50-year-old construction worker and Navy veteran, faced both those questions in a flashing instant yesterday, and got his answers almost as quickly.

Mr. Autrey was waiting for the downtown local at 137th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 12:45 p.m. He was taking his two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, home before work.

Nearby, a man collapsed, his body convulsing. Mr. Autrey and two women rushed to help, he said. The man, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, managed to get up, but then stumbled to the platform edge and fell to the tracks, between the two rails.

The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. “I had to make a split decision,” Mr. Autrey said.

So he made one, and leapt.

Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train’s brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time.

Five cars rolled overhead before the train stopped, the cars passing inches from his head, smudging his blue knit cap with grease. Mr. Autrey heard onlookers’ screams. “We’re O.K. down here,” he yelled, “but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K.” He heard cries of wonder, and applause.

Power was cut, and workers got them out. Mr. Hollopeter, a student at the New York Film Academy, was taken to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. He had only bumps and bruises, said his grandfather, Jeff Friedman. The police said it appeared that Mr. Hollopeter had suffered a seizure.

Mr. Autrey refused medical help, because, he said, nothing was wrong. He did visit Mr. Hollopeter in the hospital before heading to his night shift. “I don’t feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help,” Mr. Autrey said. “I did what I felt was right.”