When John Gordon came to help out at the Williston Day Street Fair three weeks ago, he didn’t know his help would include saving someone’s life.
But Gordon, a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the Willistons and a Williston Park resident, rescued an elderly woman who had fallen as she was crossing the railroad tracks as the 10:09 a.m. train from Albertson approached the Long Island Rail Road station in East Williston.
“It all kind of happened very quickly. I turned and I just saw her down on the ground. I ran over as the gates were coming down,” he said. “It didn’t seem that she was getting up so I helped her up and got her to the side when the train came.”
Jerry Baldassaro, a fellow chamber member who owns the Town Planner Community Calendar, said the train was about 10 to 15 seconds away from pulling into the station when Gordon pulled the injured woman off the tracks.
“He saw her fall. He immediately started running toward her,” said Baldassaro, who was directing traffic with Gordon at the street fair. “He got her up and got her out and then the train came through.”
Baldassaro said he and Gordon were standing near each other about 25 feet east of the railroad crossing directing cars away from the fair site when the incident occurred.
He said he heard Gordon say “Oh my God” and turned to see him sprinting toward the woman who was sprawled across the railroad tracks.
Gordon, who was directing traffic westbound traffic on Hillside Avenue onto Sagamore Road, said the woman apparently tripped and fell as the railroad crossing gates started to come down.
Gordon, 33, a lawyer with Vishnick McGovern Milizio LLP in Lake Success, said the woman had fallen on Manhattan-bound side of the tracks, and he could see the train coming toward the woman.
“I didn’t think the train was going to stop. I thought she was going to get hit if I didn’t pick her up,” he said.
Gordon said after he pulled the woman off the tracks he noticed the woman was bleeding from a cut above her eye, helped her into a nearby chair and went to find paramedics stationed at the street fair.
“I was more concerned than anything,” he said. “My heart was beating a little quicker than usual though. It’s the first time anything like that has ever happened to me.”
Members of the East Williston Fire Department led by 1st Assistant Chief Pat McWhirk and 2nd Assistant Chief Patrick Theodore arrived on the scene along with members of the Williston Park Fire Department and immediately dressed the woman’s head wound, according to former East Williston Mayor Nancy Zolezzi, who witnessed the aftermath of the rescue.
Zolezzi said she didn’t know who the woman was. She said a man, apparently the woman’s husband, arrived and she was transported to Winthrop-University Hospital for treatment.
Theodore said the fire department could not reveal the woman’s identity.
Gordon said following his rescue the woman was worried about getting blood on his clothes. He said he only talked to her briefly during the rescue and said he never learned the name of the woman whose life he saved.
Gordon said when he thought about the incident later in the day, the woman reminded him of his grandmother.
“I’m happy that she can still be around for her family in the way my grandmother still is,” he said.
Gordon said, in the moment, he just saw someone in trouble and reacted without thinking about it.
“I was just glad that I happened to be in the right place at the right time,” he said. “I would hope this is something anyone would do in this situation.”
