Ballet Dancer Rescues Man Shoved Onto Upper West Side Subway Track

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A ballet dancer is being hailed as a hero for rescuing a man who was pushed onto the tracks of an Upper West Side subway station and rendered unconscious, according to reports.

Grayson Davis, 31, jumped onto the downtown tracks at the West 72nd Street and Broadway subway station late Saturday night to pick the man up an hoist him to safety, the New York Times reported. Davis told the Times that when he saw nobody was helping the man, he decided to spring into action.

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

Carolyn Mack, a 23-year-old resident of the Bronx, was fighting the man before shoving him onto the train tracks. Mack fled on foot but was followed by witnesses and arrested around 11:20 p.m. Saturday, an NYPD spokesman told Patch. Mack will face attempted murder charges, according to court records.

The victim, a 58-year-old man whom police have not identified, suffered lacerations to his head and was treated at an area hospital, an NYPD spokesman told Patch.

Davis' mother, Janie B. LeTourneau, wrote about the rescue in a Facebook post shared by the American Ballet Theater. LeTourneau said that Davis' wife, ballet dancer Cassandra Trenary, sent him to look for security when she saw the fight between Mack and the man break out. They were both shocked when they saw Davis jump down onto the tracks and pull the man to safety, LeTourneau wrote on Facebook.

"We were all horrified about what was about to happen as the man lay unresponsive on that track...out of no where and just in time we all watched as a brave young man jumped down, and lifted the man high up on to safety like he was a feather."

LeTourneau said she has "never been as proud" of Davis as when she realized it was her son involved in the rescue.

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.

“I never realized how high it was,” Davis told the Times. “Luckily, I’m a ballet dancer, so I swung my leg up.”

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