She heard an odd noise and spotted the apparently drunken man laying on his back in the middle of the tracks. “Help him! Help him!” shouted frantic straphangers on the other side of the station.
Winkler, afraid she couldn’t lug the bigger man to safety alone, encouraged a man standing nearby to jump down for a rescue try.
“This guy jumps down on the tracks,” recalled Winkler. “And he’s pushing him, trying to get him to stand up.”
Witness Margaret Besheer said the panic in the station escalated when the second man landed on the tracks — and the northbound train suddenly appeared.
“I glanced up and see the lights of an approaching train on the uptown side, and glance back and now there are TWO people on the tracks,” recounted the Voice of America correspondent.
The unidentified rescuer and his drunken target managed to reach the platform, where Winkler — with the help of two other women — pulled the pair to safety.
