Ballet Dancer Honored For Saving Man Who Was Pushed Onto Subway Tracks

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A ballet dancer was honored Wednesday morning for saving a homeless man pushed onto the subway tracks of an Upper West Side station in June.

Grayson Davis, a dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, was awarded the New York State Liberty Medal on Wednesday by State Senator Brad Hoylman. The medal is the highest civilian honor that the State Senate awards and is given for acts described as "meritorious, humanitarian, selfless, noble, heroic, and exceptional actions by the recipient on behalf of their community."

Davis — who lives in Chelsea — was awarded the medal at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, where the American Ballet Theatre is later performing.

"Gray Davis acted when others could not. His selflessness in the face of danger symbolizes the very best of New York and sets an example for all of us. I am proud to call Gray a constituent and thrilled to bestow upon him our State’s highest civilian honor," Hoylman said in a statement.

On June 3, Davis jumped down into the tracks at the West 72nd Street and Broadway subway station late Saturday night to pick up a man who had just been shoved into harms way. Davis brought the 58-year-old man safely back onto the subway platform.

The man was pushed onto the tracks by Carolyn Mack, a 23-year-old resident of the Bronx, an NYPD spokesman told Patch in June. Mack and the man were fighting before she shoved him onto the train tracks. Mack fled on foot but was followed by witnesses and later arrested, an NYPD spokesman told Patch.

"At first I waited for somebody else to jump down there," Davis, a dancer with American Ballet Theater, told the New York Times in June."People were screaming to get help. But nobody jumped down. So I jumped down."

Davis told the Times that he, his wife and his mother were waiting for the train at West 72nd Street because of service disruptions at their normal station. The three were heading home after a ballet performance by Davis' wife. Davis did not perform that night because he's recovering from a herniated disk — but his ballet skills ended up coming in handy while climbing up from the track.

Photo courtesy Susie Morgan Taylor/State Senator Brad Hoylman's office.