I was having lunch recently with an old friend of mine, Rocco Sacci, of Sacci PR, at one of our favorite restaurants, Dock’s Oyster Grill on 40th street and Third avenue in Manhattan. We like to eat at the bar, where the bar specials are always a top choice of clams, oysters, chowders and grilled fish. An assortment of cold beers is usually pushed aside by Rocco, who likes a straight up vodka martini served in a frosted bird bath glass, with a slice of lemon tossed in for good measure.

As I was signing the bill, Rocco mentioned to me that he would walk north with me up third avenue to 42nd street and go west, and I would turn and go east to First avenue, and back to my office. As we exited the restaurant, there were hundreds of people on the sidewalks, as it  was only around 2pm, and 42nd street afterall is one of the crossroads of the country. As we were approaching 41st street, for some reason or another, I looked ahead through a sea of people, and watched as a bus pulled into the bus stop at 42nd street. Surely, one of the more mundane scenes blending into the overall staging of life at this time of day. People were exiting the bus, as a short line waited to enter, while throngs of people were crossing the street at all four corners of the intersection. As a woman appearing to be in her fifties was hurrying to get on the tail end of the line, she slipped on the curb and fell to the pavement, rolled off the curb, and slid under the bus with her head resting up against the rear wheel. She lay there stunned, and unable to help herself up, as there was no room to manuver. Amazingly, not one person in the vicinity noticed her as they all were concerned with getting off and on the bus, and crossing the street before the traffic light turned green or red in the intersection.

As the door on the bus was about to close, I began at full speed to dart through pedestrians and started screaming from across the street “Stop the Bus - Stop the Bus!”  Some people started to look at me as if I were just a crazy commuter, trying to halt traffic so that I could get a ride uptown. I kept on screaming until two women in their twenties saw what I was screaming at, and reached down and pulled the woman by her arm closest to them, and got her onto the sidewalk. By this time other people in the crowd started yelling at the bus driver.

The woman, looking embarrased, quickly brushed herself off, thanked the women, and walked away, as did all other commuters and pedestrians. In the seconds that all of this took place, I found myself standing in front of the bus driver who had just set foot on the sidewalk, looked me in the eye and said “What the hell’s wrong with you?”  He got back on the bus, closed the door and drove off. By now, a totally different crowd of people were walking by, oblivious to the scene that just took place.

Rocco ran up to me and said, “Do you know that you just saved that woman’s life?”

Thanks Rocco. Next lunch is on me

Mike McCurdy, Founder/Publisher - HealthNewsDigest.com