A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employee is being honored for rescuing a passenger on the Chicago subway system who had fallen on the tracks while he was off-duty last month, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The employee, Chicago-area resident Eddie Palacios, is scheduled to be a recipient of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s Award for Valor, according to the report.
Palacios, who works at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, said last month that he was waiting for a train on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line when he saw another passenger fall on the tracks as an oncoming train was approaching.
{mosads}Palacios jumped onto the tracks and waved his arms to alert the driver of the train to stop.
He credited his TSA training for giving him the instinct to try to help the engaged subway passenger.
“I wasn’t even thinking about putting myself in danger because I work at TSA,” Palacios told Chicago website DNAinfo.com in an interview after the incident became public.
“They taught us a lot of things to do and how to act in situations, not to put ourselves in harm or put other people in harm,” Palacios said of his TSA training.
Palacios reported late to his job at the Chicago airport because of the incident, but DHS spokesperson Peter Boogaard told the paper that he informed a supervisor that “somebody needed help at the train station, so I helped them.”