Courageous Sales Tips —DeWese

“DON’T MOVE, or both of us will die,” shouted Wesley Autrey as he pinned a fallen commuter between the subway tracks before an onrushing subway train in Manhattan.

Wesley had been waiting for his train on the station platform with his two young daughters when a young man suffered a seizure and fell about eight feet to the tracks below. Wesley jumped down to the track bed, rolled the man between the tracks and lay on top of him as the train passed over them with two inches to spare.

Wesley is just a 50-year-old construction worker.

He is just a good father who was taking his daughters to school.

He is well-spoken, spontaneously funny, and ever so modest as I learned when I watched his appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman.” Then I saw Wesley’s remarks at the awards ceremony hosted by New York’s Mayor Bloomberg and legions of officials representing the city, the fire department, the NYPD and the Transit Authority.

When the mayor asked Wesley, who was holding one of his daughters, to step to the microphone, the hero made several extemporaneous and humble remarks about how Americans step forward in times of need. He said he only did what Americans do. He spoke without a stammer and without saying, “you know,” “like I said” or “um.”

Tugs at the Heartstrings

I’m a little iffy on quoting his remarks verbatim because I was getting a little weepy. That happens to me in the presence of ordinary people who have done extraordinary acts of charity, heroism or extreme selflessness.

Of course I cry during movies, especially the endings. I sobbed when Brando has his heart attack in the tomato garden in “The Godfather.” I used half a box of Kleenex during “Rocky.” I balled during the final scene of “Animal House.” You remember that parade scene where the Deltas finally extract their vengeance on Faber College’s Dean Wormer and the obnoxious Omegas. They were tears of joy, but I still cried.