A father in New York City had to think fast to save his baby daughter. On Thursday, February 21 at around 9:20 a.m., the 8-month-old fell onto the subway tracks in her stroller. According to the cops and MTA workers, the brakes on the baby’s stroller malfunctioned before plunging onto the tracks at the 72nd Street-Broadway station in the Upper West Side.
“The stroller rolled away from the man and the baby in the stroller fell on the tracks,” a worker told the New York Post. “But they got the baby up off the tracks right away. Thank God the baby wasn’t hurt.”
The father jumped onto the tracks and was quickly able to get the baby back to safety, suffering just a bump on the back of her head.
According to the report, it was the quick-thinking of another train driver who helped save the child. The 2 train driver on a nearby track notified the station and police and emergency personnel were able to respond while halting service on the uptown 1-train.
Fortunately, trains were quickly notified about the baby on the tracks thanks to a quick-thinking No. 2 train operator. He witnessed the incident from an adjacent track and reported it to the Rail Control Center, which in turn called the police, according to the MTA said. Local and express service on the line was held for only about five minutes.
“Our Train Operators have to be alert for anything out of the ordinary along the tracks, and this Operator was definitely at the top of his game this morning, Thank God,” Transport Workers Union Local 100 president Tony Utano said in a statement. “He very well may have saved this little girl’s life and The Transport Workers Union Local 100 couldn’t be prouder to call him a member.”
Another worker, however, was more baffled than anything and expressed her opinion on the situation in a way that most of us can probably relate to.
“These trains come into the station every three minutes, they got so lucky,” she said. “How the hell do you let the stroller roll away from you like that?”
Luckily, no one was hurt.