By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
BROOKLYN — The Brooklyn woman who was saved by an unknown subway Samaritan after she fell on to the train tracks at Union Square wants to meet the mystery man who came to her rescue.
“Thank you very much,” said Jessica Oshita when asked Friday what she’d like to say to the quick-thinking bystander who rushed to her aid after she fainted and fell into the path of an oncoming L train.
Asked if she'd like the man to come forward so she could meet him, she responded, "Yes, I would."
Oshita appeared in good spirits despite cuts around her lip and eye when she emerged from her Williamsburg apartment less than a day after returning home from a three-day stay in the hospital.
“We’d like to meet him,” said her father, Gary Oshita, on Friday as he and his daughter got into a cab outside her Grand Street apartment.
“I think he’s a hero to me — he saved my daughter’s life.”
On Monday night, the 26-year-old photographer fainted while waiting on the platform for an Eighth Avenue-bound L train and fell helplessly to the tracks below.
The subway superman — described by officials and witnesses only as a black male — jumped down to the tracks to try to hoist the woman out of harm’s way.
Unable to lift her limp body back on to the platform and seeing the lights of an approaching train, the man placed her in between the track’s first and second rails, where the train had enough clearance to pass safely over her, transit officials said.
The shadowy superhero then disappeared before police and emergency responders arrived at the scene, police said.
Gary Oshita, who flew in from his home outside Honolulu, Hawaii, to be with his daughter, has repeatedly said he’d like to meet the man whose courageous act might have saved her life.
“He really did a great thing, and we want to thank him,” he said on Thursday when arriving back to his daughter’s apartment.
Jessica Oshita doesn’t recall the incident at all, her roommate said.
“She doesn't remember anything about the guy or what happened,” said Will Robbins, 29. “She was unconscious.”
Robbins explained that Oshita was heading back home to Brooklyn Monday night when she began feeling unsteady. Seeing the crowded subway platform at Union Square, she opted to catch an Eighth Avenue-bound train so she could grab a seat on the waiting Brooklyn-bound train, he said.
"She felt lightheaded and literally just fainted," Robbins said. "She was out cold."
Despite the harrowing experience, her roommate said she was “in good spirits” only hours after the near-fatal incident.
"She was making jokes the night it happened," Robbins said. "She's a tough girl.”
If anyone has any tips to the subway hero's whereabouts or witnessed the incident, e-mail newsroom@dnainfo.com or call 646-435-9091.
