On Monday morning (September 23), just before 8 AM, a 45-year-old man (Fernando Balbuena-Flores) jumped in front of a subway train at the Kingsbridge Road station in West Bronx, in what appeared to be a suicide. He was holding onto his 5-year-old daughter at the time, but she fell into a crevice between the tracks and survived. The father was heard saying "I don't care" and "goodbye" in Spanish on the phone before jumping.
Footage shows the little girl being retrieved by two bystanders from the track after the train passed. A flustered crowd gathers around her in the video to check if she was alright. She had some cuts and was bleeding from the head, so she was taken to a nearby medical center for them to be treated. She is now in stable condition.
One of the men who helped the girl onto the platform, 32-year-old Antonio Love, said that he was amazed by how many witnesses reached for their phones to record the situation, rather than jumping to help the 5-year-old. “It was just panicking,” Love said. “Like regular New Yorkers, pulling out their phones. Really? Let’s get down there and help.” Love also shared the heartbreaking detail that the girl just kept repeating was "Papa, my papa." To make this story even more infuriating, Love's bag was stolen after he left it on the platform to go help the girl.