Karma, Baby! ‘Subway Hero’ Who Saved Child From Oncoming Train Gets A Much-Needed Job

subway heroEarlier this week, an unemployed Brooklyn man became an instant hero when he rescued a baby who’d fallen onto the tracks at a busy subway station. A strong gust of wind had blown the stroller right off the platform just as a train was approaching. (Could you imagine?) That’s when Delroy Simmonds sprung into action. He jumped onto the tracks, grabbed the 9-month-old boy who at this point was bleeding from his head and pulled him and his stroller to safety as a crowd looked on in horror.

”Everybody is making me out to be some sort of superhero,” Simmonds said. ”I’m just a normal person. Anybody in that situation should have done what I did.” What Simmonds, himself a father of two, fails to realize that many people wouldn’t have done the same. The boy’s mother, Maria Zamara, was apparently “frozen with shock,” according to witnesses. (She had three other children with her at the time.)

It would be nice to think that someone else would have stepped up to the plate had Simmonds not been there, but who really knows? Regardless, this man is a hero whether he likes it or not. Simmonds says what he did was instinctive “I really wasn’t thinking,” he insists but not many people would have his courage and bravery. (The baby, by the way, is still in hospital with a bandaged head but according to his mom, he’s “doing fine,” thank god.)

Simmonds has spent the last year unemployed and searching hard for a job (in fact, he was on his way to an interview when the subway incident occurred). Yesterday, just moments before reuniting with the baby and his mother, Simmonds found one. The NY Daily News reports he received numerous job offers after his story broke but, ultimately, he’s chosen to work at JFK airport as a maintenance worker.

Simmonds will be paid $9.50 an hour two dollars more than the starting salary for regular new hires. ”It says a lot about his character that he would jump on the tracks to save a [child],” Guy Rodriguez, who hired Simmonds, tells the paper. Of course, the cynics among us will roll our eyes over the whole PR/marketing opportunity here, but that’s besides the point. What matters is that Simmonds found a much-needed job after 12 months of searching and, amazingly, he credits the baby whose life he saved for making it all happen. (That’s karma for you.)

That’s the little man that got me a job today,” Simmonds said during their reunion. ”It feels amazing. Just seeing him alive.”

(Photo: MarchCattle/Shutterstock)

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