Daughters saw dad jump onto subway tracks to save teen and thought they lost him—seconds later, they heard a familiar voice

Not all heroes wear capes. Some of them turn out to be regular subway commuters. According to CBS News, 50-year-old Wesley Autrey was with his two daughters, standing at the Upper Manhattan subway platform back in 2007. A fellow commuter, 19-year-old Cameron Hollopeter suffered a sudden seizure and ended up falling onto the subway tracks at Broadway's 137th Street station. 

Autrey noticed the incoming train on the same tracks and he did not think twice before jumping into Hollopeter's rescue. At first, Autrey tried to pull Hollopeter up to the platform but he realized that he didn't have enough time in his hands. So, he bravely pushed himself and the teen between the rains beneath the oncoming train. "I didn't want the man's body to get run over," Autrey told the news outlet. "Plus, I was with my daughters and I didn't want them to see that. I was trying to pull him up but his weight was too much plus he was fighting against me — he didn't know who I was." 

Autrey recalled how the teenager was moving violently in his grip due to the seizure and he decided to pull Hollopeter to safety from the high-voltage third rail. Autrey ended up lying on top of Hollopeter to protect him from the train that passed above them. "The only thing that popped up in my mind was, 'OK, well, go for the gutter,'" Autrey mentioned. "So I dove in, I pinned him down and once the first car ran over us, my thing with him was to keep him still." The drainage lines between the subway rails only happen to be 12 inches deep and could be as shallow as 8 inches or as deep as 24 inches, as shared by a New York Transit spokesman, per the outlet. 

Thankfully, the train operator had seen someone falling on the tracks and had pulled the emergency brakes. Yet, two cars of the train ended up passing over Autrey and Hollopeter. While trying to save the teen, Autrey had left his two daughters on the platform. The little girls thought that the train had killed their father and the teen but were relieved to hear Autrey assuring them of his safety from underneath the train. Meanwhile, Hollopeter, a student at the New York Film Academy, was transported to a hospital where he was said to be in stable condition after sustaining minor injuries. 

His mom Rachel even hailed Autrey as an "angel." "He was so heroic," she told the news outlet over a telephone interview. "If he wasn't there, this would be a whole different call." An onlooker named Patricia Brown mentioned how Autrey, a Vietnam War vet, deserved to be "recognized as a hero." When Autrey made his exit from the subway station, people cheered for him and gave him hugs. After the incident, service on the line was suspended for 45 minutes between the southern tip of Manhattan and the Bronx.