CTA commuters have simple short-term goals every time they hop on a bus or train: Get to their destination safely and as soon as possible.
A Green Line passenger who was in an apparent rush last Tuesday may have not been thinking rationally or about the security risks when she tugged on a train’s manual door release and tumbled onto the L tracks after missing her stop.
The woman could have been hit by an oncoming train, gotten into contact with the highly electrified third rail or crash-landed on the street below — the latter of which was likely if Chiquita Martin and Marcella Lockett hadn’t driven by and flexed their altruistic muscles.
The rescue in Garfield Park may not draw the same attention as the violence that torments our city. But it captures an attribute shared by countless generous Chicago-area residents: Their willingness to show up for each other, strangers included.
Martin said she and Lockett debated whether she had glimpsed a pair of feet dangling on the train tracks that night. Luckily for the CTA rider, Lockett gave in to Martin, who ordered Lockett to pull up their pickup truck. Sure enough, they heard the screams when they stepped out of the vehicle, the Sun-Times’ Sophie Sherry reported.
Then, determining it’d be too late for emergency workers to help, the pair quickly took matters into their own hands and told the woman to jump into the bed of their pickup truck, saving her from far more serious injuries. For the victim, it was a leap of faith in every sense of the word.
The woman ended up with just a broken leg. She also broke a leg in the figurative, as in “good luck,” sense. Someone else less helpful or fast on their feet could have been the one to spot her as she was losing her grip.
When the potential for danger lurks on every corner, it is easy for pedestrians and motorists to keep their guard up and not pay too much attention to their fellow citizens, who could be asking — or begging — for assistance.
Most people won’t ever have their routines interrupted by the sight of woman hanging on for her life on train tracks.
But they could run into a senior citizen who may need help crossing the street, a lost out-of-towner seeking directions, a homeless individual looking for a couple bucks for coffee.
Martin and Lockett deserve praise for their reflexive good Samaritan behavior, which serves as a reminder that we’re all capable of engaging in acts of kindness. The train of thought centering on selflessness should never leave the station.
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