Straphangers help others amid Brooklyn shooting chaos: ‘That’s who New Yorkers are’
Big Apple straphangers rushed to each other’s aid amid the Tuesday morning mayhem at a Brooklyn subway station — where a crazed gunman opened fire inside a packed train car.
The ordinary heroes sprang into action, assisting bloodied commuters strewn on the platform of the 36th Street station after a smoke bomb was deployed and gunfire burst through the Manhattan-bound N train just before 8:30 a.m.
“We turned toward the train car and we see white smoke starting to billow and fill up the train car,” eyewitness Kenneth Foote-Smith told NBC News. “We see people running toward the doors that separate the train cars, and we see people banging on them, screaming for help, almost like a horror movie.
“Some kind gentleman was on the other side trying to open the door to get to the connector, and unfortunately the door was jammed on our side so they couldn’t get out of the train,” he said.
Dramatic images from the scene show straphangers applying pressure to wounds and comforting wounded subway riders as smoke spewed from the train car.
Officials said 28 people were injured, including 10 who suffered gunshot wounds.
“On 9/11, I stood on 4th Avenue and watched people, New Yorkers, come back from that tragedy,” MTA CEO Janno Lieber said at a press conference Tuesday. “I watched New Yorkers help each other, and storekeepers walk out and give people water.
“That was the same thing we saw on the platform today,” Lieber continued. “We saw New Yorkers in a difficult situation, in an emergency, helping each other.
“That’s who New Yorkers are,” he added.
Mayor Eric Adams echoed the sentiment.
“I believe life was saved based on the actions that we witnessed on some of the amateur video that was released,” the mayor said. “You saw passengers coming to the aid of each other and I just cannot thank New Yorkers enough for how we respond.”
One straphanger said he and others — mere strangers — just leaped into action.
“Trying to find a semi-empty car, I saw the victims laying on the floor,” photographer Derek French told Rolling Stone. “Myself and a few other citizens just wanted to help out as best we could for those affected by rendering medical aid until paramedics arrived.”
But not everyone was as selfless in the chaotic aftermath.
Some witnesses said that while several straphangers hung around to help the injured, others ran for the exits in a frantic bid to get to safety.
“Nobody waited to see what was going on,” said Yuneun, a 19-year-old college student who said he was in another car on the train when shots rang out, then bolted with other passengers to an R train waiting at the 36th Street station. “When we got to 25th Street, the doors opened and everyone from the front ran out.
“People at the back were shouting, ‘Get off the train, get off the train,’ ” he said. “They were saying something like, ‘Fire, smoke.’ It was hard to hear because of the chaos. Everybody was running and pushing, trying to get out.”
Another witness, Yehis Suliaman, who works at a corner deli on 25th Street, said “people were running all over the place.
“Some people didn’t even know what happened,” Suliaman said. “When you [are] scared and I guess adrenaline pumping, you don’t even feel like you were shot. They were all crying. It was a pretty scary scene.”
Added subway rider Sherwin Older, a carpenter who works nearby, “This summer is going to be hot, and I’m not talking about the weather.”
