This is a great story even without the trash it makes of right wing "Christian" homophobia.
Last week at Union Station in Washington D.C., a woman's wheelchair apparently malfunctioned and tumbled her over the edge on to the Metro (D.C.'s subway system) tracks. This is doubly dangerous because not only can you be run over by a train but also you can be electrocuted by one of the rails.
While people crowded around the scene unsure what to do (I admit that I would have been one of those people without a clue), two women jumped into action. Chilian T. Ta raced up the escalator to notify the Metro station manager in hopes of stopping trains from arriving, while her partner, Michelle Kleisath, jumped down onto the tracks to try to rescue the woman. When she realized she couldn't lift the disabled woman off the tracks, she called on a man she'd given money to earlier, and he jumped down and helped her. Two other men joined them and together they saved the woman. Then Kleisath and the unnamed panhandler jumped back on the tracks and got the wheelchair because they were afraid that otherwise the chair on the tracks would cause an accident.
Kleisath stayed with the injured woman until the emergency medical services came.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
I used that exact Metro station for 16 years and I know that just falling down to the tracks, even without the electrified rail and the imminent arrival of a train, could cause injury. But these courageous souls braved the trains and potentially fatal electricity not once but twice in order to help others.
Kleisath and Ta are from Seattle, Kleisath an anthropologist who came to D.C. for a conference on race relations. No one seems to know the identity of the man Kleisath called on for help, but he is probably one of the many homeless who populate this area within a few blocks of the Capitol (I used to figure at least $1/day for handouts into my budget when I worked there).
So my title could have been just as easily "Two West Coast Liberals and A Homeless Man ...."
My husband points out that if this woman, this hero, were a member of our military, she would be thrown out.
I'm also reminded of the time, several years ago, when I was on the Metro on my way home and it was delayed for more than an hour because someone had been hit by a train. A guy in a suit across the aisle from me was on his cell angrily telling someone why he would be late. He said "yeah, it's going to be a while because some idiot got himself hit by a train." The title for that one would be "Beltway Insider More Concerned about his Schedule than about Someone Dying."
In these days of hearing about what's happening in Haiti and admiring the many people who have gone to help, I add this little tale of heroism.