A mysterious good Samaritan saved a young woman from being crushed by an L train in Union Square after she fainted and tumbled onto the tracks Monday, police said Tuesday.
The hero courageously jumped onto the tracks and made a nick-of-time rescue after Brooklyn photographer Jessica Oshita, 26, fell suddenly Monday night.
"I think this whole thing is a miracle," Oshita's mother, Sue Oshita, told the Daily News from her home in Hawaii. "He is a guardian angel."
Oshita's fall left her unconscious and lying face-down on the tracks, blood pouring from her head. The hero had little time to rescue her - perhaps less than a minute, one witness said - but he was cool under pressure.
He first tried to lift Oshita onto the platform, police sources said, citing accounts provided by at least two witnesses.
But before he could pull off the rescue, he heard the rumbling of the oncoming Manhattan-bound train and was forced to make a split-second switch to Plan B.
It proved to be a life-saver.
As the train approached, the hero placed Oshita's body in the well between the rails and then quickly hoisted himself onto the platform, the sources said.
The hero - described by cops only as a black man - then disappeared quietly into the night.
"He has not been identified," a police source said last night.
Ana Mercedes Cardenas, a Manhattan lawyer, was on the opposite platform, waiting for a Brooklyn-bound L train, when Oshita fell.
"I saw the woman face down on the rails," Cardenas said, noting blood was pooling on the tracks. "It was shocking to see."
Cardenas, 26, said she saw someone move like they were going to jump down from the platform, but the person hesitated. She said she did not see anyone go down onto the tracks, but added she had stepped back, frightened by the sight of so much blood.
Many straphangers waiting on the platform apparently didn't see the man's heroics, either. When the sound of the oncoming train was heard, Cardenas said people began "yelling and screaming," believing they were about to witness a tragedy.
"The train started coming, everybody just looked at the track and started waving their hands, screaming: 'Stop! Stop! Stop!'" Cardenas recalled. "But the train didn't stop."
Five subway cars rolled over Oshita, police said. She suffered three facial lacerations requiring stitches, and remained in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital yesterday.
"She's fine," Oshita's mother said, adding that the young shutterbug's father was flying to New York to be with his daughter.
The hero's bravery was reminiscent of the lifesaving actions of Wesley Autrey, the construction worker who saved a man who had a seizure on a subway track in 2007. Autrey threw himself over the man and held him in the well between the rails as the No. 1 train passed by.
Oshita's mother hopes her daughter's savior will not remain anonymous. "I do wish that somebody would find him," she said.
-Source-
Okay, I just liked hearing a story from New York that's uplifting. It's nice to hear of people being brave and risking their lives for others.
Oh, and people are saying this guy looks like Hancock, by the way. I'm not so sure, but...
Just me though, eh?
