They didn't think about their own well-being, instead they were focused on helping the man who was passed out and bleeding on the subway tracks.
They jumped down to help, but had precious little time to rescue him.
"I know it said two minutes until the train was coming in. I saw the lights, so it had to be at least 100 feet," said Dennis Codrington, a Good Samaritan.
With a train racing into the Columbus Circle Subway Station early Sunday morning, Dennis Codrington and two other Good Samaritans were running out of time.
Using all of their might, they tried to lift the unconscious man who'd fallen on the tracks.
"This guy, he had to be drunk, just fell into the tracks and didn't even brace himself. As soon as he hit the rails he was bleeding," Codrington said, "We got him to the side of the platform, but there was no way we could lift him up. We kept trying. We kept trying."
Codrington says the man was about 6'1" and weighed more than 200 pounds.
After unsuccessfully trying to get him on the platform, Codrington says straphangers helped pull up the unresponsive man, whose face was bloody.
He was taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
"When something like this happens, does your intuition kick in? Do you think about jumping down on the tracks or do you just do it?" Eyewitness News asked.
"I really didn't think about it too much, to be honest. I just knew there was some guy down there," Codrington said.
Codrington, who works as a personal trainer, says he doesn't consider himself a hero.
But he says he did learn something about himself from this experience.
"I'm starting to realize that, you know what, that could have been me, and I need to make the best effort to fulfill the things that I want to do," Codrington said.
One of the other Good Samaritans was Codrington's friend visiting from Poughkeepsie.
The third man is a cadet at the Air Force Academy.
He was the first one to jump on the tracks to help.
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