A Cornell University student saved a stranger from death by pulling him off of subway tracks in New York City.
Bryce Demopoulos was on his way to Weill Cornell Medicine — where he is working during the summer — when the heroic deed took place, the Washington Square News, NYU’s student newspaper, first reported.
“It was pretty surreal,” Mr Demopoulos, a biological and environmental engineering major, told the outlet.
“While I was actually on the track, I did hear a train getting louder and louder and I didn’t know if it was on that track or another track at first. I knew that I could get out of the way quickly, but I was worried about carrying him out.”
The incident happened on 4 August at the Third Avenue-138 Street station in the Bronx. Shocking footage recorded by an MTA employee shows Mr Demopoulos jumping on the tracks and saving the man shortly before a train stopped at the station, WSN reported.
The video shows Mr Demopoulos helping the man to the platform before he gets himself to safety.
“I am shocked still by the decency, concern, and genuine kindness that might lead one to risk such danger to help someone else,” C Perkins, who recorded the ordeal, told WSN.
“The danger is not just the oncoming train — it is the large jump down, the third rail, the stranger putting his arm around you.”
Ms Perkins said Ms Demoupolos gave the man a bottle of water and made sure he was in a good state.
“None of the words I can think of do the situation justice,” she told WSN. “He saved, cared for, and went on to defend the man who put him in harm’s way.
Mr Demopoulos also told the outlet that saving the man was “the thing that a reasonable person had the responsibility to do.”
“I saw somebody who was obviously in trouble and I was in a position to help him. It didn’t really occur to me that it was dangerous in the moment – I just feel like I had the responsibility to just hop in and help him when he needed it,” he told the Cornell Chronicle.
MTA employees decided against alerting the New York Police Department about the incident and allowed the man to leave. He thanked Mr Demopoulos before leaving, WSN reported.
It is unclear whether the man fell on the tracks or jumped. An MTA spokesperson told The Independent that the entity could not clarify the circumstances around the situation because it hadn’t been notified of the incident until Monday.
