Watch a Chicago man stop an oncoming train in the nick of time
Jon Hansen/DNAinfo
An off-duty TSA worker saw a woman fall onto the tracks of Chicago's 'L' train on Wednesday, and immediately went into action.
The man, identified by DNAinfo Chicago as Eddie Palacios, 50, jumped down to the inbound tracks at the Blue Line's Chicago Avenue stop and began waving his arms to stop the train that was arriving. He was wearing a bright orange University of Illinois jacket and thought that the vivid color would attract attention. It worked; the train was able to stop before it reached the woman, and she was lifted back up to the platform by several bystanders.
Witnesses are unsure how the woman fell onto the tracks; she was overheard telling a passenger that she slipped, while others told DNAinfo that she smelled of alcohol. After the incident, Palacios boarded a train to his workplace, O'Hare Airport, where he told only his supervisor about what happened.
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"As long as I was feeling good that I did something, I didn't think anybody needed to know," he told DNAinfo. "Even when I went to work, people found out just recently, before I left, they said to me, 'How come you didn't say anything?' I said, 'Well, the only person I have to answer to is my wife.' She's the only one I talk to and everybody else is secondary. Because I didn't do it to brag about it or anything because there was nothing to brag. I was just worried about the person more than anyone else." --Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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