With just seconds to spare, New Jersey transit officer Victor Ortiz pulled a suicidal man from a set of railroad tracks just before a train came barreling by.
Ortiz, says the suicidal man was distraught over going to jail, prompting him to jump down into the pit of the tracks.
“He decided to kneel down onto the tracks,” Ortiz says. “Knee first, [and] then his arms. And at that point, I looked to see if there was a train coming, and probably about a half mile up I saw the lights of a train coming.”
Office Ortiz refused to back down, even as the train neared.
“He says, ‘I just want to die, I just want to die, I just want to die,’” Ortiz says. “I go, ‘no, you’re not going to die. I’m not going to let you die.’ ”
And he didn’t. At about the 1:05 mark, footage shows Ortiz frantically tugging the resistant man. Ortiz pulls the dude to safety just as the train zooms by.
Afterward, the man took medication and had a talk with the officer.
“He goes, ‘I can’t believe you did that, you didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to put your life on the line,’” Ortiz says. “And I said, ‘it’s my job.’ ”
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