MONTREAL – Amanda Delorey is still recovering from injuries sustained after falling onto the Metro tracks on Sunday.
Now that she is out of hospital, the 28-year-old is on a mission to find the man who jumped onto the tracks to pull her to safety.
“I want to find him to thank him for saving my life,” Delorey said.
The incident happened at around 5:30 p.m. at the Côte-Vertu metro station. The Verdun resident was on her way home when, for a reason she can’t explain, she blacked out and then regained consciousness just before hitting the ground.
“I seen the train coming right there and I was like, ‘oh, I’m going to die’ and I just curled up into a little ball,” Delorey explained. “The next thing I know some guy tried to come in and pull me up but my elbow and knee had hit so I couldn’t get up so he just bent down and then he threw me over his shoulder.”
Delorey fractured three bones in her face and now needs plastic surgery.
What upsets her the most is that the platform was full of people and only one person tried to help. She saw others take out their phones to try and capture the chaos.
“He’s my hero. He saved my life,” said Delorey, who is now speaking out, hoping to track down the young man who risked his life.
She describes him as a black francophone man in his early 20s.
“He was only my size. He wasn’t a muscular guy so the adrenaline must have been pumping through him because he threw me over his shoulder then threw me over the platform then he jumped up,” Delorey said.
The STM would not share footage of the incident with Global News but a spokesperson insists while people may be tempted to come to the rescue in cases like these, jumping on the tracks should never be an option.
“What we ask to the clientele and the public is to trigger the switch and then to call on the red telephone and we’ll take care of it afterwards,” Isabelle Tremblay said. “The last thing one can and should do is to go on the track to help a person because it puts two people at risk instead of one.”
But many STM passengers are calling the young man a hero.
“It’s a risk to take to save someone’s life,” Dady Haidara said. “I would do the same thing.”
“That’s heroic because he’s giving his life to help save someone he doesn’t know. It never happens anywhere… in 2016, it never happens,” Youssef Abdelal said.
Delorey is hoping her story will somehow find its way to the young man so she can thank him personally.
“I was so much in shock I was like, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry for your white shirt.’ He said, ‘no it was my choice. It’s OK.'”
“I’d like to thank him and tell him I’m sorry for ruining his white shirt again.”
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