Seeking: Subway Strangers.

Sometimes you wish the internet really did reach everyone. Sometimes it can be used to find strangers, and tell them things. Like this:

You: A young guy who pulled me out of the Herald Square subway tracks when I fainted and fell in 2006. And also all the people who got together on the platform to pull me up. And then stayed with me until more official help arrived. And the woman who started screaming that I was in the tracks -- maybe it was because of you, anonymous woman, that people helped me out.

Me: The young woman in a green shirt who got a really great haircut and then fainted into the subway tracks. Who then quit a job she didn't like, had a family, and found a job she did like.

Thanks, You, for doing what you did. At the time I thought what you did was what anyone would do. Maybe that isn't true. I often forget and take you for granted. Sorry. Thanks. I hope all of you cheat death sometime. It's a gift. (Though I also hope you find true love and win the Powerball.)

(Here's an old essay about what happened.)

Be merry (you could be dead, or in Bellevue),

Katherine

Out of Transit.

Filth. I remember the filth. I noticed it just before I heard the woman screaming, “she’s in the tracks!” and thinking, thank god that’s not me, I always stand in the middle of the platform. But there is clearly more filth here, I think. I was lifted from behind and pulled up by a number of onlookers standing on the subway platform. I had fainted and fallen on the tracks; two men had jumped in to get me out.  People stayed with me, gave me water and washed my hands. No train came.

I had gone downtown to buy shoes. I broke my left hip and wrist. I had no idea at the time, in the ER, that my condition was so serious. I remember thinking, this has been quite stressful, maybe I will take a personal day on Monday. I spent two and a half weeks recovering at Bellevue. I couldn’t walk for a month. Until that time, I had been able-bodied, somewhat athletic, able to get around. And suddenly, due to the subway, I couldn’t get around at all. It was a mini-adventure in life, learning how to do everything with a wrist cast and wheelchair. Putting on shoes, getting in a chair, getting out of bed.

I fully recovered. One of the men who jumped in to help me checked on me in the hospital. I still think about him occasionally, though the memory of the accident wears with time. Yet I hope the reminder that I shouldn’t waste my life remains forever with me. And speaking of miracles, the shoes I bought somehow made it through the entire process, from the subway, to the ambulance, through Bellevue. I wore them to a wedding last weekend, but I took a cab.

2009