Off-duty TSA worker jumps onto subway tracks, saves woman

The TSA is calling him a "humble hero."

On Wednesday morning, an off-duty Transportation Security Administration (TSA) worker jumped onto the tracks at Chicago's Avenue Blue Line subway station and saved a woman's life.

Shortly after 11 a.m., Eddie Palacois, 50, was on his way to work as a security checkpoint worker at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport when he heard people on the subway platform screaming that a woman had fallen onto the tracks below.

"I heard somebody yell, 'She fell, she fell! You gotta get out of the way! The train is coming!' So I turned around to see what they were talking about," Palacios told DNAinfo.

"I looked over and saw a lady just yelling," he said. "When I looked over, I actually thought it was a child who had fallen. They actually staggered three times trying to get up and get out of the way."

Hoping his bright orange hoodie would be visible to the driver, Palacois immediately threw himself in front of the train, frantically waving his arms at the oncoming train.

The train screeched to a halt in time.

DNAinfo reporter Jon Hansen captured the incident on camera.

"It almost seemed to him like it was his duty, and he didn't think anything of it. And he wasn't looking for praise, he immediately got on the train when it got to the station and left like nothing. It was really quite an act of heroism," Hansen told NBC News.

Another bystander, Rita Sattler, yanked the woman up onto the platform by her hair.

"Luckily enough, CTA stopped to give us the time to get her off the tracks," Palacios said.

"That man is really a hero," Sattler said of Palacios in the video. "I don't think I could have stood on the tracks."

The rescued woman told one of the commuters that she just slipped onto the tracks below. She was stopped from leaving the scene and taken by ambulance to the hospital for medical attention.

Palacios continued on his way to work. He quietly told his supervisor about the incident — and news of his heroics quickly spread among colleagues.

"As long as I was feeling good that I did something, I didn’t think anybody needed to know," Palacios told DNAinfo. "I didn’t do it to brag about it or anything, because there was nothing to brag. I was just worried about the person more than anyone else."

"We're human, and we need each other," he added. "That's the bottom line. We really do."