I'm not sure why I'm posting about this, but here goes.
I got onto the subway this morning, and upon leaving the station there was a slight commotion in my car. For those familiar with the set-up of the 1 train, I had entered through the middle sliding door, and the incident in question happened closer to the side sliding door. In any event, by commotion, all it amounted to was hearing someone say "Sorry" in a sort of stunned fashion. When I looked up, I saw what I can only describe as a guy who looked a little bit out of it (whether that means drugs, booze or just being loopy, I'm not sure) sitting there, with an empty seat on each side of him. And he was shooting dirty looks up at the people standing by the door, but not doing much else. (As I found out after the fact, he had been lying across three seats and someone told him to get up.)
Anyway, at the next station, I watched get him up and yell "Get the fuck out of my way!". He got off the train and turned around to start yelling at the people standing on the train by the door, to which they reciprocated in kind. He finally stormed off, the doors closed and the train started to pull out of the station. I had a feeling he wasn't done, so of course I watched to see what he would do when we passed him further ahead on the platform, and on cue he lunged at the train to smack the window. Except after hitting the window, he fell.
The train kept going, my particular car was now inside the tunnel, but it suddenly came to a screeching halt. And we heard an announcement that there was a passenger injury. A few minutes later we heard that the train was out of service and the people in the front few cars, where I was, needed to walk back so they could exit. After being in a standstill for about 7 minutes, we finally started to move back towards the station, when firefighters entered our car and told us we needed to stop. The man I had seen had fallen onto the tracks and been dragged into the tunnel. And he was essentially right outside the car where I was standing, underneath the train. Another few minutes passed, they managed to get him up onto the platform, and I continued walking back and was able to exit the train right where a phalanx of firefighters and police officers had formed around him so we (innocent bystanders) did not need to see the grisly results.
I am relieved to say that I saw on the NY Post website that he survived. Still, it is this sort of unpleasant thing that can only happen in New York. And while I grew up here and it's all I know, I also realize that the risk of encountering the crazy guy on the train, or some other unexpected danger, could be right around the corner.
