The subway superhero(1/2)

A real-life hero risks his own life to save the life of a stranger

Diving onto subway tracks, a Harlem father saved the life of a stranger on January 2 of this year when he pinned the flailing man between the rails just seconds before a 370-ton train roared over their entwined bodies.

"Please, sir, don't move," Wesley Autrey, 50, said as he shoved his body against Cameron Hollopeter, who had tumbled off the platform after suffering a seizure. "If you move, one of us is going to lose a leg or die." The men, who were jammed face-to-face in a two-foot depression between the tracks, were unharmed by the train that screamed over them, just inches away.

"It's miraculous ," Hollopeter's grandfather, Jeff Friedman, said later. "He's sedated, but the doctor said he's going to be OK."

Autrey, a construction worker, was having an otherwise ordinary afternoon when he passed through the turnstiles with his two young daughters. Autrey first noticed Hollopeter when he collapsed to the platform after the seizure. The convulsions subsided and Hollopeter climbed to his feet-but he then staggered and fell off the platform.

"I had a split-second decision to make," Autrey said. "Do I let the train run him over and hear my daughters screaming and see the blood? Or do I jump in?"

Knowing a train was likely to pull into the station at any moment, Autrey tried to pull Hollopeter up. But the fallen man started fighting his rescuer, knocking him dangerously close to the third rail and its deadly 600 volts. Autrey said that after only a few seconds, he saw the lights on the front of the train bearing down on him and pushed the man into the trough.

Hollopeter was fighting and pushing against Autrey, so he lay on top of him. "Then train was probably two inches off my back," Autrey said.

Vocabulary Focus    

flail (v) ---to move energetically in an uncontrolled way
depression (n) ---a part in a surface which is slightly lower than the rest

sedate (v) ---to cause a person or animal to be very calm or go to sleep by giving them a drug

bear down on (phr v) ---to move in a threatening way towards someone or something

Specialized Terms

Harlem (n) ---哈林（美国纽约市一个黑人区）a section of New York City in northern Manhattan populated mostly by African-Americans

seizure (n) ---癫痫a very sudden attack of an illness involving unconsciousness or violent movement

turnstile (n) ---十字旋转门；旋转栅门a gate that only allows one person to go through it at a time; usually payment is required to enter

convulsion (n) ---抽搐a sudden, uncontrollable movement of muscles in one's body, caused by illness or drugs

trough (n) ---沟槽a low point on a series of high and low areas