THE HERO

The year may be young, but it is not too early to nominate the No. 1 feel-good story of 2007. Somebody is going to have to work awfully hard to outdo Wesley Autrey, a true hero in a city where the word "hero" is overworked to the point of losing all meaning.

Unless you're just back from Neptune, you will recognize Mr. Autrey as the construction worker who jumped from a subway platform to save a film student who had sufferred a seizure and fallen to the tracks at 137th Street and Broadway. Mr. Autrey shoved the student into a trough between the rails and held him there as a No.1 train rolled over them -- catastrophe mere inches away.

You can't make up stories this good, or come up with a more appealing hero than this 50-year-old working man. He went to City Hall yesterday with his two young daughters, to be honored by the mayor. The word "hero," even "superhero," hung in the air, thick as a morning fog. Mr. Autrey was having none of it.

"Superhero, superhero," he said, almost mocking the word. "I don't feel like a superhero."
I just did it," he said, "because I saw someone in distress,."

Maybe so. It is safe to say, though, that precious few of us would dream of doing what he did. The oods are far greater that we would end up like the film student, Cameron Hollopeter, 20. Not that we would necessarily tumble onto the tracks. But falling ill in the subway? It happens all the time.

In fact, "sick customer,": to use the official lingo, is a major reason for train delays, hundreds of them every month.