Humble Trainwreck Hero
Is an Eagle Scout. Mom read the trapped woman’s account of an anonymous hero who stayed with her in the smoke-filled train, called up and said, “That’s my boy.” El Heraldo:
The humble hero who went back into a smoke-filled trainwreck to aid a trapped, badly injured mother of three downplayed his bravery yesterday, as the pair were reunited in a hospital room.
“Don’t thank me,” said Ben Papapietro, 19, an Eagle Scout and Red Sox intern. “I just happened to be there.”
“Oh no,” said Min Perry, 37, still in her Boston Medical Center hospital bed with severe leg injuries. “You risked your own life.”
The encounter quickly became emotional, as Perry was overcome by tears. They grasped hands.
“You’re a true hero. Thank you so much,” Perry said through sobs.
“No, I’m not,” protested the bashful Papapietro, and he reached for her hand again as she cried.
The pair recounted the ordeal and Papapietro said he’d been thinking about her for the past two days. He shook hands with her husband.
“I only saw half of you,” Papapietro told Perry. “I’m so happy some kind of good could come out of this.”
“It meant a lot to me that you stayed,” Perry said.
“I just happened to be there. It’s a good thing that you were screaming,” Papapietro said. “I wouldn’t have known you were in there. That’s the reason I got back on.”
Perry knew Papapietro only as “Ben,” the young man who comforted her during her ordeal. After reading Perry’s account in the Herald, Papapietros’ proud mom called up to identify her son, launching a media storm of attention yesterday.
Papapietro said he was heading home to Sudbury and ran from Fenway to catch a crowded Green Line train at Kenmore Square.
Papapietro was in the second car of the trolley being driven by T operator Terrese Edmonds, 24, who was killed in the crash. As the crowd began to thin, Papapietro grabbed a seat and relaxed while listening to Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” on his IPod.
Papapietro said the train was going full speed when he heard the “scariest sound” he’s ever heard in his life. He held onto his seat as the trains collided and saw sparks, fire and smoke outside. He heard screams.
Papapietro, a sophomore at the University of Arizona, said he went into survival mode. He pulled a red emergency lever, opened the doors and sprinted out. “OK, I’m alive,” he thought.
But then he heard blood-curdling screams coming from inside the crumpled wreck. He took off his blue dress shirt, covered his face and headed back in.
In the front of the train, Papapietro saw Perry from the waist up, her lower half tangled in a mass of metal, steel and wood. She had a big gash on her chin. “It was the most agonizing face that I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“She’s screaming, ‘My legs! Somebody help me!’ ” he recalled.
He called 911 and emergency workers told him not to move the trapped woman. So he took Perry’s hand, comforting her for about 20 minutes until help arrived.
“I said, ‘Min, just squeeze my hand as hard as you can and look into my eyes,’ ” he said. “Don’t close your eyes.”
The teen gave her his shirt and told her to breathe through it. “They’re coming for you,” he said. “They’re going to get you out of here.” Perry stopped screaming and quieted down - and that scared Papapietro.
“I didn’t want her to pass out. I didn’t want her to die right in front of me,” he said. In a calm voice, Perry asked Papapietro to “call my husband and tell him that I love him.”
Papapietro did but was thankful her husband didn’t answer. Then he heard sirens. He kept comforting Perry until a firefighter told him to leave because the situation was becoming unsafe. As he walked away, Perry called out for him.
“It broke my heart,” he said. He stayed until he saw her being flown to Boston.
Papapietro’s boss, Red Sox president Larry Lucchino, said, “He is a role model for his generation and a hero to all of us.”
Latest on the investigation: She didn’t hit the brakes. The train was going nearly 40 miles an hour. Still no word on the cell phone records. Passengers reported the deceased operator was yakking.
Topics: Boston, Boy Scouts, courage
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:17 am on Saturday, May 31, 2008
2 Responses to “Humble Trainwreck Hero”
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May 31st, 2008 at 12:50 pm
It’s easy to see why Liberals hate Boy Scouts so much! Doesn’t that boy know he’s doing the government’s job, and he’s not a member of The Union? snarc/off
Boy Scouts have been demonized and punished for decades by a bunch of haters from The United Way to local, state, and federal governments. I no longer donate to The United Way, whether under corporate pressure or other, for their decision to deny funds to The Boy Scouts of America. I don’t need to pay no stinking clearing-house to re-direct my charity dollars and use them to make their personal political statements.
Scouting does a boy good. Scouts do the world good, daily, one good deed at a time. If this young man inspired you, make a donation to or get involved in your local Scout troop, Boy or Girl. To be A Scout, especially an Eagle Scout, is a life-long commitment and responsibilty, on your honor, to do your best, for God and country. That’s a great start into adulthood for any young person. From his viewpoint, Ben Papapietro is not “a hero”, just a young man who is keeping his word, made on his own honor. What an honorable young man he is indeed.
May 31st, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I luckily got to be in Scouting back in the day when they taught you useful things, how to use an axe, make a rope bridge, build a fire. Sounds like young Ben is a throwback to that era and he deserves our admiration.
Building on the previous post, among the many things I think I will never forgive libs for is their willingness to sic their lawyers on the BSA on behalf of self involved twits who are more concerned about their personal sexual preferences more than they are about being role models for impressionable young men.