On the rails

She was the last person off the train, left behind the others as they left the Metro station. She was probably 25, dressed in jeans. We watched her alone on the platform from across the tracks while we waited for our train. She moved slowly, wavering toward the edge of the platform. Everything was happening very slowly, even when her leg gave way and her whole body folded up and rolled off the platform, skidded down the wall and onto the tracks. She lay between the rails, semiconscious and barely moving. It was so unthinkable to see her body lying on the tracks that a stillness and silence took control of everyone on our platform.

The third rail is on the ceiling in the Madrid Metro, making jumping onto the tracks slightly less terrifying than one might imagine. The threat comes solely from being crushed by a train, not from being electrocuted as well. Nonetheless, I was shocked and horrified and relieved to see Jack down on the tracks running to help the limp body. There were fewer than four minutes until the next westbound train would pass where her body lay, and fewer still until the next eastbound train sliced by inches away. No one other than Jack was acting to help this woman, but everyone must have had an image the train running her over in their minds.

The strange quiet continued until Jack looked up and started yelling “Medico! Medico!” Someone on the platform took the charge and began yelling for a doctor, and someone ran up the stairway in search of more help. A crowd grew on our platform, watching Jack bend down to talk to the woman. One other man jumped down to help for a moment, but was quickly gone. In the moment, Jack could not remember any Spanish so was useless in communicating with the woman. She was barely alert and not aware of her situation.

Then the proximity of the approaching trains weighed down on the entire station. A light from the eastbound train charged toward the station. Frantic, I began to wave my arms and scream, “Stop! Stop! Para! Para!” At last the crowd began to act, joining in the effort to stop the train, to catch the engineer’s attention.

The eastbound train slowed and stopped before entering the station. But Jack and the woman remained close to the westbound train’s entrance, and a bend in the tunnel meant that little time was available to wave the engineer to a halt. Jack’s mind raced through the possibilities. The woman was too heavy to lift out of the tracks. If the train did not stop, she could lie perfectly still and the train would pass over her. Jack would jump to the safety of the eastbound tracks. She might be untouched. Or, if anything went wrong, we would all witness her horrendous death.

Perhaps in my panic I couldn’t see or hear anything other than Jack and the woman together on the tracks. My memory is focused on Jack desperate to help the woman and stop the trains, while in my peripheral vision, I see the crowd mostly quiet or murmuring, but not helping. I handed my cell phone to a man standing next to me. “No hablo español! Call for help. Call for help.” Another woman looked at me and asked me something that I couldn’t understand. I told her that Jack couldn’t speak Spanish and someone else needed to help Jack talk to the woman lying on the tracks. Still no one else was helping. Two men in Metro uniforms appeared. I couldn’t see that they were making any effort to communicate with the approaching train, and they certainly weren’t helping to move the woman off the tracks.

By the time the westbound train appeared, the crowd was yelling again “Para! Para!” Who knows if there was a system in place to stop the train. When the light appeared around the bend, arms were waving, people were screaming, and I can only hope that someone somewhere had already communicated to the engineer to stop. He brought the train far closer to the scene than you might imagine a good system would have allowed. The approaching train stopped just outside the station.

With both trains stopped, and crowds growing on both platforms, the engineer of one of the trains got onto the tracks and went to help the woman. Jack jumped back up onto the platform. The woman was groggy and dazed as the engineer spoke with her and then helped her stagger over to a ladder where she climbed to safety.

It was very dangerous of Jack to jump down onto the tracks. But the lack of action of the others lead him to believe that if someone did not, the woman would have no chance. I thought in the moment that a handful of strong men would take immediate action and lift her from the tracks and back onto the platform. Reflecting back on it, it would, of course, have been more dangerous to have a half dozen people on the tracks. But none meant that she was more likely to been unseen and without any help.

Later that day on our way home, we stopped at the station’s service window to ask how the lady was. The station manager said that she was fine, but wagged his finger at Jack saying to never go down on the tracks again. And then, he looked him in the eye and said, “Gracias.”

Our friend Ysabel has told us stories of moments when a person was in need, and a crowd stood around and stared. One time a woman was in labor at the post office. Ysabel calmed her down and then drove her to the hospital while the others stood by and watched. Another time Ysabel was hit by a truck and had to take command of the situation herself, yelling orders at passersby.

The woman on the platform was the second person I’ve seen pass out in Madrid. The other time a teenage girl at a bookstore collapsed in front of a long line of people waiting to buy text books. I thought then of Ysabel’s stories. The girl’s mother was there and it was clearly most appropriate for her to take charge of the situation. And certainly I was in no position to help, being deaf and dumb in Spanish while dozens of others had the ability to call for help or assist. But in the end, I felt inadequate and insensitive for merely standing by and watching with the rest of the crowd. As at the Metro station, I was dumbfounded by the passivity and insensitivity of the crowd.

Jack and I each have a picture in our minds of that woman lying alone on the tracks needing help. Jack said it took him two seconds to decide what to do, that he once vowed to himself to never allow another person to be hurt when he could give aid.