FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com january 31, 2013 • THE QUEENS COURIER 3 Ramiro Ocasio stands on the subway platform where he saved an elderly man from being struck by a train on January 18. Straphanger saves elderly man after subway fall HOME O F BRAVE BY ALEXA ALTMAN [email protected] Ramiro Ocasio stood on the platform of the 59th Street and Lexington Avenue subway station, listening to music and avoiding the shuffle of commuters on his way home to Astoria. As he waited for the train, the 33-year-old records clerk at Kirkland & Ellis considered plans for the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and thought about Sunday’s football game. Suddenly, the crowd rushed VISIT towards the tracks, staring over the edge at an elderly man who had tumbled from the platform, another potential victim queenscourier.com in the string of subway fatalities recently afflicting the city. Ocasio didn’t think when he left work two hours early – a benefit granted by his employer every Friday before a holiday weekend – as he said goodbye to a few co-workers and checked in with his supervisor one last time before the extended break, that he would be saving someone’s life. The crowd screamed as the man crawled along the tracks, disoriented and injured. Straphangers wailed, frozen with fear. Then, the metal rails rumbled, reflecting the train’s headlights. “Nobody was doing anything,” Ocasio said. “I had to jump in.” Powered by adrenaline, Ocasio hopped into the ditch, grabbed the man by his collar and waist and hoisted him back onto the platform. The train inched closer. The rumble grew louder. “Now you’re in trouble,” he thought. Ocasio jumped to pull himself up. The ledge was too high. He jumped again. Five sets of hands clutched his and heaved him to safety. Bystanders gathered Ocasio’s jacket, backpack and wallet, which he abandoned before jumping onto the tracks. One woman stood by him, saying that police and paramedics would be there soon. Ocasio’s knee was injured in the rescue, and needed to be examined. He sat on the floor of the station, shocked. “I was so lucky,” he said. Ocasio did not get the elderly man’s name but believed he suffered from vision impairment which led to his fall. All the man said after the incident was that he didn’t have any family. Ocasio believes the MTA should advise riders against standing too close to the edge of subway platforms, increasing signage and station vigilance. Not every stop is equipped with someone willing to save a life. Now, even flooded by calls from friends across the country and coworkers, eagerly anticipating the story of his bravery, Ocasio said he doesn’t view himself as a hero. “I’ve never done anything like this,” he said. “I just did it in the moment because I just saw a person who needed help and he would have lost his life. Now that I’m here talking about it, I realize I could have lost my life.” THE THE COURIER/Photo by Alexa Altman MTA TALKS PLATFORM SAFETY BY CRISTABELLE TUMOLA [email protected] After a record-tying 55 deaths from subways striking straphangers in 2012, including two high-profile shoving incidents, the MTA is reviewing platform safety. “This is a troubling and dangerous trend with serious implications for the millions of commuters who ride the subway each day,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. “With six fatalities so far in 2013, New York is on pace to reach nearly 100 deaths this year.” In a letter, Stringer asked the transit agency to look into what safety programs and features transit systems around the world are using, including platform doors, and their costs and feasibility. At a presentation during its transit committee meeting on Monday, January 27, the MTA addressed many of those items, discussing both current measures and possible future tactics to prevent subway cars from hitting people. The agency said that it has always emphasized platform safety, but it also plans on implementing a more rigorous campaign. These actions include enhancing station announcements and their frequency, and posting signs highlighting platform safety in multiple languages in trains, buses, stations and on MetroCards. The MTA is also considering a pilot for intrusion detection technology, which would warn train operators someone was on the track, and one for platform doors. Transit systems throughout the world, including Beijing, Paris and London, are incorporating track barriers into their stations. Though they are a direct way to reduce accidents, they have drawbacks, said the MTA. They include installation and operational difficulties, and cost, estimated at $1 billion or more. As far back as 2007, the MTA was in talks with Crown Infrastructure Solutions to create advertisement supported train barriers, but according to the company’s president, Michael Santora, those discussions never moved forward. Installed system-wide, over time they would have been fully paid for with ads placed on the barriers, said Santora. But MTA interim president Thomas Prendergast emphasized that the barriers are not a “silver bullet.” “It would not solve the problem totally,” he said. “But if you look at it in terms of order of magnitude cost and what it would compete against in terms of other safety improvements, it’s a difficult argument. But we know we can do is we can focus efforts right now at trying to change customer behavior and that’s what we’re doing.” What do you think the MTA should do to keep riders safe? Let us know at queenscourier.com Would you jump in & save someone?
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