I Love that the Photographer Captured the Smudge Mark the Subway Train Left on his Hat

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.

You know how much I hate calling just any jackass a hero, which is the common practice nowadays. We've stooped so low that practically all you have to do is wear a uniform -- not excluding a fast food get up with color-matching polyester polo shirt, pants, and hair net -- to get the laurel leaf placed upon your brow. It drives me mad. Why? Because when someone actually does something heroic, we don't have a word to describe him (or her), the one we use to use having been watered down to meaninglessness. I think of all the people who watched this guy fall between the tracks, I think of the approaching train and the live third rail nearby, and I think of what I would've done had I been there -- and I don't have a problem calling this guy a hero, none at all.