After learning of another four people who were injured or killed due to subway-related incidents, we were very happy to hear the story of a subway hero who selflessly jumped onto the tracks Friday afternoon and saved an elderly man who had fallen onto them. We spoke to that man, 33-year-old Ramiro Ocasio, about what happened, and how he's been since the incident: "I don't even know why I did it, it's just not me man," he told us. "I've never done anything like this in my life. This is not Ramiro. I'm not a macho guy. I dont even know how to swim."
The incident happened around 4 p.m. on Friday at the Lexington Avenue / 59th Street Station in Manhattan. Ocasio, who works at the law firm Kirkland and Ellis, had gotten out of work early that day, and was listening to music while waiting for the N/Q train to come when he saw people rushing past him: "When I turn around, I see this old man in the middle of the track crawling like a little baby trying to get up," he said. "I hear people saying, 'get closer to the platform' so they could lift him up. But he couldn't. If he could get closer to the platform, there would have been no need to jump in."
Ocasio noted that this all occurred very quickly, in under 30 seconds: "I look to my right to make sure the train isnt coming, so we won't be killed. You dont know how close the train is, you can only see the light of the train coming." Then he made his final decision seconds later: "I said to myself, "I'm jumping in, this cannot happen in front of my eyes.'" Once he was down there, he was able to lift the elderly man up to the platform surprisingly easily ("I'm not a strong dude," he repeatedly noted)—but he didn't realize just how high up it was. "Holy crap, how am I gonna get outta here," he thought to himself.
He jumped up, but couldn't reach it. He tried to jump again—and this time, he was helped by 4 or 5 people who picked him up by the arms: "That's why I love this city," he said. Seven-to-ten seconds later, the Q train passed by. Ocasio said everyone was in tears, including the 7-year-old daughter of Felicia Greenfield, the woman who first told us about the incident: "She couldn't take her eyes off my face. She couldn't stop crying. It was so overwhelming."
Greenfield told us she was so impressed with him because he made "a major event look like nothing special. I kept wondering what the rest of his day was going to be like. He didn't seem the type to post his heroism on Facebook, so I just wanted him to get a little acknowledgment. Although I'd never want my daughter to jump in the tracks, I loved her getting to see a true everyday hero in action."
Felicia Greenfield
Ocasio says he injured his leg as he was trying to come up from the tracks, hitting them "really hard" on the bottom of the platform. Two MTA agents and paramedics took notes after the incident, but Ocasio said he was in a daze: "All I kept thinking about was, 'I put my life at risk for this man. Where did that come from?'"
Ocasio agrees with Greenfield that the elderly man, who refused treatment and left the station soonafter, wasn't in the right state of mind: "I'm not a doctor or anything, but he was not acting rational to me. I dont think he knew where he was. He didn't know where his family was. He kept saying he lives in The Bronx."
Since the ordeal, Ocasio has had trouble sleeping, and hasn't even been able to tell his friends what happened: "I'm a bit of a joker, I joke a lot with my friends, so they won't believe me. I haven't even told my mom." He strongly agreed with the TWU's recent campaign to encourage conductors to slow down to 10 MPH while entering stations as opposed to 30-35 MPH.
But most of all, the Boston native (note the Red Sox cap in the photos) is thankful for the other people on the platform who helped him. "New Yorkers, we come together with stuff like this," he told us. "If I could, I would choose to be born in NYC. People were hugging me, crying, they picked me up. I was lucky, they saved my life too. I'm not the only hero here."
