395: What if you were pushed into the path of an oncoming train?

This is actually happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. High listeners, we're so happy to be back with a brand new episode today as we return from the holiday break. You may have heard of today's storyteller, Joe Linsky, or seen the video of him last year on TikTok. But today we get to hear the full story of his experience and what has happened in the years since. So without delay, here is the unthinkable story of Joe Linsky. For today's episode, what if you were pushed into the path of an oncoming train? What do I want to do with the rest of my life because I could die tomorrow? Is that simple as that? It can all be taken away from you like that. From Wondery, I'm Whit Missaldine. You are listening to this is actually happening. Episode 389 What if you were pushed into the path of an oncoming train? You are listening ad-free, unaudible. My family has roots in Miami back to about 1920. My mother's father did a bit of work with Henry Flagler, who basically created the city of Miami. My father opened his own real estate sales business. My father was sort of like a don draper in the 60s and 70s and early 80s. My father, I've seen his passports just hundreds and hundreds of stamps. He was one of the first developers in the Bahamas, also in St. Martin. And my parents over the course of their marriage, they had 12 children. So I am one of 12. My oldest brother is 20 years older than I am. I was the 11th child out of 12, so I was one of the last. My mother gave birth to nine children and my parents adopted three. My father and mother were very generous people. My father was on the board of a Catholic charity, and they took infoster kids for years and years, and they ended up keeping three of them. I have two adopted sisters and one of my brothers is adopted. So it often felt very chaotic and untethered for me. There was a lot of yelling, there was a lot of jockeying for attention, for affection, for space, just to be by yourself, for a quiet. I did not grow up in a quiet household. There were a lot of dogs. I think at one point we had nine dogs at the same time, every kid had their own dog. My mother is just an animal lover, and we had a lot of outdoor cats. We had a bird, a talking parrot, so we just added to the chaotic atmosphere of the house that I grew up in. The neighborhood that I grew up in was amazing. South Miami, unincorporated. It's beautiful, subtropical, and there's huge banging trees everywhere. We had wild parrots and our backyard, and there was snakes and scorpions, and we biked everywhere, and we left the house after school and didn't come home until the sun went down, and we used to bike to the main groves and just climb out into the bay, like into this jungle. So that part was really special, but my house was chaotic to say the least. My father was gone a lot, and by the time I was born, my mother had already had ten children, and she was tired. My mom was tired. That's what I remember. It wasn't the easiest place to grow up. There was a circus-like atmosphere that was just constantly present. My parents fought. I remember a lot of screaming. I remember a lot of frustration, but there was warmth for sure, and we never went without anything. My father was a provider, and I think he pridered himself on that. And as I've gotten older, I know how lucky I am to have so many siblings. It's such a blessing, and I have, I think, at this point, 25 nieces and nephews. So I'm always going to have family. I will always have people to lean on, to talk to. I was a bright kid. I was inquisitive. I was really empathetic early on. I was very kind. I was also fearless. I grew up with five brothers, and I just learned very early on that I had to be able to hold my own in a certain respect, or I was just going to get railroaded. I was curious. I was smart. I was sensitive. I was sensitive before I knew I was gay. But I knew I was gay very early on. I knew I was gay at probably seven years old, and I was always comfortable knowing that I was gay, until other people told me that it wasn't okay, until I started being called a faggot, and a homo, really early on. But before that, I didn't understand it, obviously, but I knew that those feelings were there for me towards other boys, and it never bothered me until other people told me that it was wrong. And then everything changed. When you have to learn how to hide who you really are as a kid, everything just changes. I lost interest in school as I got older. Everything just got a lot more quiet in a lot of ways. I grew up in the shadow of the AIDS crisis, just what it was in the late 80s, homosexuality, the queer community. It was a really difficult time for a lot of people. And the bullying started probably when I was in fourth or fifth grade, and it got really vicious when I got into junior high. I lost confidence in myself, and I just went inward. And then my father died very suddenly when I was 13. So that also just kind of altered everything. I had felt so untethered going into high school after my father died, just kind of grasping for something to hold on to. And I just felt very unmoored. I can never really feel my feet on the ground, just like the carpet had been ripped out from beneath me. It wasn't until high school. The first year of high school, I meant this amazing group of people. Some of them had blue hair, and mohawk, and fishnets, and combat boots, and I just knew I looked at them and I knew I was like, oh these are my people. This is going to save me. For the first time in a long time, I felt a part of something. We were this rag-tag group of gays and lesbians and queers, and getting introduced to art in different ways, and music, and it was a beautiful thing. My friends in high school really saved my life. I think that's one of the saddest things about that time if I had just been able to just be who I wanted to be and just be myself. I don't think I would have been so racked with anxiety and guilt all the time about just wanting to kiss a boy. High school really gave me this place to kind of discover my creative side. I was writing for the school newspaper. I was doing music reviews. I was so excited I got to review the Nirvana album in utero for the school newspaper, and you know I was introduced to rave culture and punk rock and Keith Herring and Baskia. We were all freaks. We were all on the outside, but together we formed like this powerhouse. Miami Beach in the 90s was just this haven for artists, for the gay community, for the queer community. It was incredible. I went to my first rave when I was 15. It was Delight, New Year's Eve, behind the surf coma hotel on South Beach, and my life was never really the same. I just knew when I left that place that I had never felt so free before, but that's also when I started to drink. My father died a week shy of my 14th birthday. I never got to tell him that I was gay. I am 100% certain that if my father were here today, I think he would be very proud of who I was, but I would have liked to have just been able to show him who I was. I think when something is ripped away from you so suddenly, it just leaves this massive gash in your life, and I just ran from it, and I just kept running. I just kept running. My father's dad was a fall down drunk. It definitely runs in my family, and I definitely got that gene. I was looking for anything to remove me from that pain. Years of bullying and vicious name-calling and threats, I just had so much bottled up than alcohol came into the picture, along with nightclubs. My mom sort of retreated and had to grieve on her own. There was not a lot of guidance or boundaries in place after my father's death, and my friend started to get cars and drivers' license, and I was off to the races, as they say. By the time I was 15, I was drinking, and then I discovered drugs at 16, and that combination just stayed with me for the next 15 years. I was really smart when I was a kid. I was in gifted programs and all sorts of things, but as soon as alcohol came into the picture, that all went out the window. Alcohol became my priority first and foremost. That's just what alcoholism does to people. Everything else falls by the wayside, and that's what happened to me. Looking back now, it's a miracle that I'm alive. After high school, I wanted to work in the music industry. So there was a school in Orlando. I went and studied recording engineering and audio production, and I was able to sort of hold it together. I graduated and then I got an incredible opportunity to go back to Miami and work in a recording studio on South Beach, which was a dream. And my first day there, I sat at a desk, I picked up the phone, and I was taking messages, and the GM and the two other people that worked in the studio, and they were coming back from lunch, and they just started saying the most incredibly homophobic stuff you've ever heard in your life. It here I am at 20 years old with this incredible internship opportunity, and my first day there, they just threw the word, faggot out like 47 times. It was terrible. I was doing a great job. They loved me. They had no idea I was gay. And I didn't have the courage then that I do now to just call them out on their fucking homophobic bullshit. I just didn't have it. I was 20 years old, fresh out of school, trying to impress these people and get a real job. My dream job, I was surrounded by these homophobic assholes. So after about six months of that, I started DJing. I was still working at the recording studio, but I started working at night, and I had taught myself how to DJ on vinyl, and I was making friends in the clubs on Miami Beach, and I was slowly starting to make a name for myself, and I had my first DJ residency at this place called Power Studios. As soon as that happened, I left the recording studio. I just didn't show up one day, and they called me for a week asking me where I was, and I don't ever remember responding to them. I just flung myself into the nightclub world. It was fantastic until it wasn't. Pretty quickly, I just fell into a really deep cocaine addiction. I lasted on Miami Beach the about two years, and then everything just caught up with me. I was doing drugs every night of the week. I was exhausted. I couldn't hold it together. I got fired from that DJ gig that I had at this incredible nightclub, because I just was a mess. But lo and behold, I applied to a paid internship at this record label in New York City called Astralworks, which was back then the biggest electronic music label in America, and they said, come up, we want to hire you. I packed up a U-Haul in October of 2000, and I drove to Brooklyn. I parked my U-Haul on Halloween night and went and got blackout drunk. And that was the next 12 years of my life in New York. Working at this amazing record label during the day, and I was bartending at night in a gay bar. My friends from Miami, a lot of them had come to New York. I was enmeshed in this world of DJs and drag queens and club kids and go-go boys, and I was having the time of my life. But there was always a darkness there for me, because once I start drinking, I really can't stop until everything is gone. So for 12 years in New York, it was basically the same night over and over again. It was like a doom loop, and it was exhausting, and terrible, and I heard a lot of people, and I hurt myself. Even when I was really trying to hold it together from my career, it would all fall apart because of my drinking. And I just hit a wall. Everything stopped working. The drugs didn't work. The alcohol didn't work any longer. And I was alone. 2012 Thanksgiving morning. I had not been invited anywhere for Thanksgiving. To no surprise of my own, blacking out and pissing people off. And I was alone in my apartment on Thanksgiving morning, and the sun was coming up, and I had a plate full of drugs in front of me, and I just didn't know who I had become. I didn't recognize myself. I didn't recognize my life. I had lost the majority of contact with my siblings. I made a phone call to a sober person. I had met that summer, and then I went to bed, and I slept all day, and I went and met someone at a 12-step meeting that night on Thanksgiving in 2012. And that is the day that my life changed. And I have been sober ever since. So I was 33 when I had my last drink, and life just started to blossom. Alcohol and drugs had taken everything from me. And here I was, like newly reborn. sobriety really forces you to kind of look back on all the mistakes that you made, all the people that you hurt, and you get a chance to rectify all of that. You know, it was such a beautiful experience. I got to make amends to my friends and my family, and I started to travel as a sober person, and not like getting blacked out drunk on planes, or in airports, and it was a world with fresh eyes, and I felt healthy for the first time in a long time, and I built and created friendships that I have to this day. It's the most important thing I've ever done for myself. I think for me, my alcoholism really and my drug use was tied up in the Nightlife World in New York, and I had to let that go. I learned that I'm happiest when I'm giving back to people, and I started to help a lot of people in the sober community, and I started working for a company, and they curate playlists for hotels, and retail, and businesses all over the world, curating playlists for equinox, and Michael Cors, and Tom Ford, and I was working on music for Carnival Cruise Lines, and it was a godsend. Sibarity also gave me the chance to discover a passion of mine, which is tennis. I'm part of the gay league Metropolitan Tennis Group, and when I'm playing well in a tennis court, my mind clears in a way. Anxiety just dissolves, it just disappears. Also in Sibarity, I discovered how much I love to be outside and hike, and I climbed half-dome in Yosemite with my best friend Armando. My life just grew and grew. The more sober I got, I just became so much more comfortable with who I am as a human being and the things that I cared about and the things that I wanted to focus my time and energy on. I was able to become the truest version of myself, and I recently celebrated 13 years of sobriety, 13 years without a hangover as absolutely an incredible feeling. I'm in Dravama, and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Larry Chin, the spy who outplayed Nixon. For decades, Chin was embedded deep inside US intelligence. Then comes an opportunity, Richard Nixon's secret plan to reopen relations with China. Information Chin can place directly into Mao's hands, but the CIA has a weapon of their own, a Chinese mole ready to defect, how long until Chin's gig is up. Follow The Spy Who Now, wherever you listen to podcasts. So it's December 2024. I had just recently moved to a new apartment in Fort Green, Brooklyn. It was the holidays, and I woke up on New Year's Eve. The rain was hitting my windows when I woke up, and my dog was there. I have a dog. His name is Leo. I've had him for almost 17 years, and around 11 a.m., I left my apartment to go to brunch, and I got on the two three express, and I got off on 14th Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan, and I had a beautiful brunch with my three friends, and around 115 the lunch was over. We all said goodbye, and I was with my friend Mark, one of my closest friends, and we walked east on 18th Street towards 7th Avenue. There's this interesting subway stop on 18th Street in 7th Avenue. It's the one train, so it's the local line on the two three, and I had planned to take the two three express from 14th Street, but when we walked by the local stop on 18th, I saw that the local one train was coming in one minute, and I was cold, and I knew the express was only four blocks away, and I made this split second decision, just waved at Mark. I gave him a hug. I was like, I'm going to jump on the one, and I just bounded down the steps. The train was literally coming. I went through the turn style, and I could feel the platform vibrating. I was headed home to myself, just take a nap, and then get dressed to go back into Manhattan for a party later that night. I took a peek down the tracks, and I could see the lights of the one train headed into the station, and I was like, cool. I didn't see anybody all around. I can see the lights of the train coming down the tracks. I am standing pretty close to the edge of the platform, and I took out my phone to put on some music, and I was looking down, and then I felt the hardest shove. And I knew immediately, instantaneously what had happened to me. I said to myself, oh my god, you've been pushed, and this train is going to kill you. I will never forget I flew into the air. I'm a pretty strong person. I work out a lot, and I was not braced to be attacked from behind. I didn't see anyone walking up to me. I didn't see anyone get a running start to attack me. I was not braced for someone to push me, so I went flying through the air. Literally as the train is coming right at my face, so close I can see the shape of the train conductor in the window of the first car of the train that's lit up. I literally saw him as I was flying through the air. My life did not in any way flash before my eyes. The only thing I thought was I've been pushed, and I'm going to die. There have been many instances over the years, especially over the last seven or eight years, people being pushed onto the tracks. The majority of them have died, and it is a New York City nightmare, and I was fully aware when I felt his hands on my back that I was now someone who got pushed onto the tracks. It was literally the first thought that I had. I slammed into the tracks, and my head cracked open, and the train roared above my head. Everything went black, and I opened my eyes maybe a few seconds later, and I was underneath the train. I had landed in between the tracks, in between the running rails of the train. I had landed perfectly in between the tracks. It's sort of very difficult to comprehend how the train did not tear my limbs off or tear me to pieces. I sleep on my left side. I'm a left side sleeper, and I landed on my left side in between the tracks. But when I first opened my eyes, it's like I opened my eyes, like I had just woken up, because I was in my sleeping position. It's otherworldly in some way. I had now survived the unsurvivable, and I had tons and tons of steel and metal literally on top of me, and I'm breathing. I'm alive. I can see the light coming in from the other side of the platform through the wheels of the train, and the third rail is right there. Most people who ride the subway are aware that there's an electrified rail that powers the trains that runs the entirety of every subway line in the city. And when I opened my eyes, I could see the third rail. It was very, very close to my body, and I knew that if I kicked or if I moved, if I struggled, if I tried to drag myself to safety, I was fully aware of the danger I would probably electrocute myself to death. I said to myself, you have to stay calm. I was terrified, but I said to myself, if you struggle, if you kick, you're going to die. I remember calling out for help. I said I've been pushed, I've been pushed. Somebody pushed me. Please help. I mean, I'm in Manhattan in the middle of the afternoon on New Year's Eve. I'm underneath the train. No one responded to me, and I would say for two minutes, I laid there alone, screaming for help, and there was no response. I knew immediately that I was bleeding from my head. I could feel it. There was a moisture dripping down the left side of my head, and because the platform, I would say, is about a good five to seven feet, the distance from the platform to the tracks, and I was shoved so hard, I crashed into the tracks, and I had a searing, shooting pain, going down the entire left side of my body. I knew immediately that I had probably broken my ribs, and my main concern was the blood that was pooling. I could see it now from the corner of my eye, that there was blood coming from my cracked skull. And every time I took a breath, or I screamed for help, I was getting this absolutely red-hot fireball of incredible pain that was coursing through my entire body. It was the most painful thing I had ever experienced. I had to figure out for myself if I was paralyzed. I wiggled my fingers, and I wiggled my toes, and I said, okay, like I'm not paralyzed. I knew that I was between the tracks, but I was sandwiched between the wheels of the subway car, and I didn't understand how I had not been torn in half, or I wasn't missing a leg, or my arm hadn't been ripped off. So I'm just very quickly trying to figure out what I'm capable of physically, because no one was answering my calls for help. What I do know is that the conductor saw me get pushed, and he saw me go into the air, and he slammed on the brakes of the train. When he slammed on the brakes, I would say about three of the subway cars pulled forward over my body, but the conductor did not open the doors. He slammed on the brakes, and he kept the door closed, and I'm sure he was calling for help, and letting the MTA and the fire department in the police know there was a man underneath his subway car, and that was me. I kept waiting for people to come onto the platform, or someone to respond to me. I didn't understand why no one was answering my calls for help, or why the platform wasn't flooded with people, and the doors of the subway cars did not open. I have all of these racing thoughts, and I'm in this terrible pain, but also extremely calm. You know, I've been in terrible situations before, as a drug addict, and an alcoholic, and I weirdly kind of think that all those experiences that I put myself through kind of prepared me to like wake up underneath this train and protect myself. I just instinctively knew that I had to stay calm. I had to take care of myself. I had to breathe. But then again, every time I took a breath to try and call myself down, my ribs were just skyrocketing with pain. Finally, I hear a voice, and it's a woman. I knew that I could lift my head a little bit, and I looked up, and I could see the platform that I was pushed off of, and I saw this black coat and this long red hair. She was just a commuter, and she had just gone down into the station, and she seized this train, barely pulled a quarter of the way into the station, and she's like, what's going on? And then she hears me, and I'm begging for help, and she asked me my name, and I told her my name, and she asked me what had happened, and I told her that I had been pushed, and that I was attacked. She asked me if I was okay. I said I was okay. I said, I'm terribly hurt. I'm in so much pain. Can you please get help? And then she asked me to spell my name, and I think she was trying to keep me awake, because I was drifting in and out of consciousness. So I'm sitting there underneath this train, and I'm literally spelling out my last name, and I'm just thinking, like, what the fuck is happening? Like, how is this happening? Where are the police? Where is the fire department? I'm actually getting kind of annoyed. It's amazing the things that go through your mind when you're in a near-death experience, and you're trying to fight for your life, which I really truly was. It's not just the third rail that has electricity. There's something called these metal shoes that are all along the trench of the tracks, and if I had touched one of those, I would have been, you know, fried to death. I didn't know about the shoes at that time, but I knew that I couldn't really move, but I was getting so frustrated. Whether I fell unconscious or I was having these, like, dreams of some sort, like, I just thought about all these things in my life, all these situations I had been in, and people I thought about my father. I thought about one of my brothers. I thought about my years as a drug addict, and I saw myself in a pool with my dad and my siblings on Hutchinson Island where we used to vacation, and all these kind of beautiful pieces of my life were like kind of floating through my head, and then I would wake up, and I would realize, oh my god, and someone would be talking to me again. I would say four to five minutes in, I finally heard a siren. I remember I took this really deep breath when I heard a siren because I felt like I'm going to be okay. Then it was just absolute chaos. I just remember the sound of the siren getting closer and closer, and it was swirling into the station, boots clamping on the stairs, and I heard all of this clacking and flashlights, and they were circling over my body, and I could see like the light from a flashlight crossing over my face, and then this man yelled, and he's like, FDNY, FDNY, what's your name, what's your name? And again, I told him my name, and they asked me what happened. I said, I was pushed, I was pushed, please, please, help me. The FDNY was trying to talk to the MTA, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to see if they could cut power to the station, to cut power to the third rail, because the fire department is going to have to come down there, and they're risking their lives. These guys are going to risk their lives, and crawl next to this electrified rail to come and get me, and I guess the MTA could not cut the power to the station. There's two firefighters, John and Jonathan, they specialize in rescuing people from the subway. They pull people out, that's what they do, and their engine company was right around the corner from the subway station, literally a block away. And just the very night before on December 30th, their engine company, their battalion, John and Jonathan had trained to pull someone out from beneath the subway train just the night before, and I heard this crunching sound. I looked up and I saw an FDNY uniform, and all of a sudden, I had these two men looking at me, and I'm looking up, and I just like, so thankful to see these two guys. It was really incredible. They risked their lives to come and get me at something I will never ever ever forget. I'm so much gratitude to both of them, and to their whole engine company, and to every first responder that showed up onto that platform, they looked at me and they're like, okay, do you know what the third rail is? And I said, yes, they're like, good, because you can't touch it. If you touch it, we're all going to die. All of us under here will die. And they said, you have to remain really still. We're going to figure out how to get you out of here. The more and more awake that I am now, the more and more pain my body is in, because now there's just like total chaos on this platform. So many first responders on the platform. And now, more regular people have just come, and people are just now flooding into the station. These two firefighters looked at me, and they said, can you move? And I said, I don't know if I can move. I'm in so much pain. I think I broke my ribs. Everything on my left side was on fire. And they said, we're going to drag you out. And I said, you're going to drag me. And they said, we have to move right now. One of them took one foot, and one of them crawled in front of me, and tried to get an arm. I can see the blood had pulled all around my face, and they're like, we got to go. We got to go. And then I'm just being dragged. And I started screaming in pain. I will tell you, if you've ever been to New York City, and you've seen the subway tracks, it is not a clean place. So I was dragged through the filth and the muck of the New York City subway system. The air was like really dank and accurate, and it smelled like wet metal. And I will never forget like this really heavy metallic scent that was like permeated all around me. So they dragged me to the opening between two cars, and they said, we have to throw you against the platform wall. I could not comprehend what was happening. I was in so much pain. And John and Jonathan, they just took me by my arms, and they heaved my body against the concrete wall. They said, we're going to lift you up. And now I have people talking to me from the platform above. And they said, you have to raise your arms. And I said, I can't. And they said, you have to raise your arms up. Can you please raise your arms up? And I stuck my arms straight in the air. And there were hands on my hands. And I was pulled up from the tracks. And I was heaved onto the platform. And I felt a pain. I have never felt before in my life. It's hard to describe the redness, the hotness, the searing and scorching pain that ran through my body when they threw me onto the platform. I almost passed out and I was screaming. I was screaming in pain. They lifted me up and then there was a stiff board place underneath my body. And they were sheering my clothes off with surgical scissors right there on the platform to see what injuries I had sustained. They cut through my jeans, they cut through my puffer, my winter coat, and just with this clean wash that I'm on the platform in my underwear and it's freezing. And it's the end of December, it's New Year's Eve. Then I look up and I can see people that were still inside the subway car because the doors of the subway still had not opened and they had their phones out. So people are trying to get a photo of me laying there on the platform and everyone is screaming he's alive, he's alive, he's breathing, he's alive. I looked at the firefighter and I said to him, I was like, I know I'm really really hurt, I know I'm hurt, really bad, but my dog is home alone. The first thing I said on the platform because my dog Leo, he was 16 at the time and he's blind and deaf pretty much and he was home alone. And I realized when I was underneath the train that what was my dog gonna do? I'm laying there underneath this train and this poor old elderly docksend is sitting at home waiting to be fed and I just like I couldn't get the thought out of my head that he wasn't gonna be taking care of. And everything just went bananas after that. They snapped a neck brace around my neck and I was bleeding profusely from my skull and they had to get me to the hospital you know within a minute I'm being wheeled out of the station. The stretcher hits the street and it's so cold the wind is just whipping and there's like light rain and there was a humongous crowd of people on the corner. Just regular New Yorkers just trying to figure out what had gone on and I saw people grab their phones out and I'm being wheeled out on a stretcher and I'm thrown into the back of an ambulance in the door slams and we're on our way to the hospital. I said to the EMT I need my phone I need my phone he was like I don't have your phone and I was like my dog is home alone I need to talk to my family can you please tell me where I'm going and he said just please calm down we're gonna take care of you you're gonna be okay. I just remember being really confused in the back of the ambulance and starting to realize the full extent of what I had just been through. I was wheeled into the emergency ICU and it was pandemonium I mean there was probably three doctors 10 nurses multiple police officers I'm being wheeled down this hallway into an operating room and I didn't know what to do I just tried to keep breathing. A social worker came up to me and she had my phone in her hand and I told her to call my sister Kathy and I told her about my dog I would not stop talking about my poor little blind dog at home and this amazing beautiful twist my nephew who is eight years younger than I am was in the city with his wife and I had just seen him three nights before for dinner and somehow within maybe an hour maybe a little bit longer of me being in the hospital I see my nephew Matthew walk in the door and I just I started crying I started crying and he took my hand and he said you know I'm here I'm here I'm here the doctor came and he said you've ruptured your spleen we're gonna have to operate on it it's hard to describe when you've pulled out from beneath a train alive and then you're in a hospital and they're telling you that they're gonna remove your spleen I just couldn't comprehend what had happened to me and then I heard someone say there's a video they're trying to catch the guy they put out a video and I said a video of what and she said of you being pushed it was all caught on tape he had run outside of the subway station on 18th street they caught him at 59th street my nephew started talking about the video and he had seen it and he said it was brutal and my mind just couldn't really comprehend that it was now on video being shot across the world I was in the ICU for five days and I broke four ribs I fractured my skull open and I had a concussion and the ruptured spleen and I was at Bellevue for a week and it was extremely intense extremely painful they had me walk on day three in the ICU and it was really hard to walk my sister came to New York that night on New Year's Eve she landed shortly before midnight and she came into the room about 12 30 a.m. on January 1st and she took my hand and we boasted a crying I had an incredible group of friends that never left my side another gift of recovery and sobriety the community just really rallied around me and just showed up in this intensely beautiful way and I'm forever grateful for that I was really overwhelmed because the video had gone viral immediately you know I was in the New York Times and my phone was ringing off the hook and I had all these media outlets contacting my family constantly I wouldn't see it myself for two or three more days I was communicating with people and I opened TikTok and it was the first video I saw it was the very first video I saw of TikTok was myself in my winter coat standing on the platform and I'm taking my phone out of my pocket and I stare at my phone and the man who attacked me runs up from behind and pushes me and I fly into the air just as the train is coming into the station and you see my body gets sucked underneath the train and anyone who sees that video would assume that I was dead my heart just stopped my mind went blank and it didn't truly hit me that I survived the unsurvivable the urban New York City nightmare of being thrown onto the tracks and then there's this video it's not a long clip it's maybe nine seconds and I watched it again and then I threw my phone down it was very surreal and bizarre to see myself being attacked it was very haunting and I struggled to understand how I was pulled out alive it's really difficult to imagine what could have been when I see that video that's what the video takes me to is what could have happened I've been in therapy since early January of this year and I've had ten months to kind of go over over and over again everything in my mind that keeps me awake at night because it's a miracle that I'm alive it's a miracle that I have my arms and my legs and it's a miracle that I'm not paralyzed so that video will stay with me for probably the rest of my life and in some aspects now when I see it it's a powerful reminder for me to just keep moving forward just to keep going because it's all right there my death is right there I can see it and I'm glad I can watch this happen to myself because it gives me the strength to know that I am alive and how much gratitude I have for my life today so when I got home it was just a whirlwind of pain physical pain was doing physical therapy for the ribs at home for maybe 10 weeks and then I was in the vestibular therapy for my balance and vision doing all these vision tests and it was really really a difficult time I have really struggled to sleep a lot the last 10 months the pain for my ribs was so awful and I had to sleep laying flat on my back and I can't let go of the what if of this whole situation this violent push I have these flashes when I'm trying to go to sleep of you know the train hitting my legs and bleeding to death underneath the train but it was also really touching this sort of beautiful aspect of friendship and community showing up to take care of me and just people from all over the world I was interviewed for the New York Times by this amazing journalist Katie she wrote a beautiful story about what happened to me they could have been anybody on that platform and I think people really reacted to my story in that way and it was truly touching I was in a lot of pain for 90 days an incredible amount of pain and then slowly just through physical therapy and rehab my life just started to kind of and no way get back to normal but I could walk around I could see my friends easier I could go sit down at a restaurant and I was getting stopped on the street I would be in a coffee shop in my neighborhood and people would come up to me and you know just say that they're glad that I'm alive and it was really beautiful New Yorkers really we respond to each other in a really kind way and that's something I really love about this city the firefighters John and Jonathan I had the incredible opportunity to meet them in person about a month after I was attacked they told me that I was the very first person that they pulled out alive from beneath the train they almost looked at me as if sort of I was a ghost because I think they were just so shocked to see me walking and smiling and hugging them and I will be forever grateful to the FTNY and those two men for pulling me out think I went back to work 20 hours a week in the beginning of April I needed something to just kind of occupy my mind and I just sort of had to figure out how you peace your life back together I don't believe that we're defined by the things that happened to us I think what makes us as people is how we react to what the universe throws at us I didn't want things in my life to be taken from me by what had happened to me yeah I was really empathetic with myself and I gave myself space to heal properly I gave myself space to be alone when I needed to be alone summer came and my first plane trip I went and saw my mom was you know something I really needed to do I got on a plane and I went to see my mom and I got to see some of my sisters and life just slowly started to open itself up again once the pain went away I had this opportunity to kind of figure out what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be again it was kind of like I had a chance to start new on January 1st 2025 I just started to kind of look at a lot of things in my life through a different lens I have an amazing therapist and I've talked through so much about what's happened to me and the other traumatic events that have kind of connected my life in a lot of ways and I'm I can say that I'm a survivor I'm a survivor I've always been a survivor life can change on a dime I think we all know that you never ever know what is around the corner and I've learned today to expect the unexpected always one of the things that's been a real challenge especially living in New York City since I was attacked I was pushed from behind I didn't see the person who pushed me I thought I was standing alone and I I don't like people coming up from behind me on the street even joggers in broad daylight on a sidewalk I've jumped into the air I've I've had many panic attacks someone walking close to me and trying to brush by me on a really busy street that's definitely part of my PTSD and it's been really difficult for me to just sometimes even walk outside someone just jogging down the street but I can't see them I hear footsteps running towards me I've jumped in the air it's it's something I'm working through in therapy but it's I feel like a a piece of my city has almost been taken from me and I'm proud of the progress that I've made and I'm out and about and I have been for a really long time since the attack but it's it's something that lingers and it hasn't left but I don't live in the past this man attacked me it was brutal it was violent I was hurt but I can't change what happened to me I'm a control freak in a lot of ways I'm very type A and a random violent attack on my life just there were so many things that were out of my control I've had to really lean into acceptance like acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today I just have to accept what's been done to me what's in front of me and I can only try and move forward and heal and keep asking for help I think sobriety taught me you can't alter the past I can only have my feet on the ground today and that's the only way I know how to live the man who attacked me his name is Camel he's very young he was caught shortly after he attacked me he's been in rikers ever since without bail I don't think about him often I don't have a lot of space in my life for negativity or resentment or anger it's a difficult thing to think about I know that he's hurt other people from what I understand I do not know a lot about him there will be a criminal case he has pled not guilty but he is in rikers without bail but for now I don't have the space to hold on to what he did I just move forward and I know there will be a time where maybe I can learn more about why he did what he did attempted murder will really make you take stock of what your focus should be and where and who you give your energy in life to that is something that I realized after I was attacked was I I'm so grateful for the things I have in my life and I did in December 30th 2024 I had all of those things but I was coasting and when my head hit those tracks it was like in a way a chance for me to take stock of a lot of things and really just force myself to take account of who I am now and what I want to do with the rest of my life like what do I want to do with the rest of my life because I could die tomorrow is that simple as that it can all be taken away from you like that in some ways everybody is on a train we all have this thing that pulls us forward in life or keeps us stuck in one place but I know that we all want I think to end our trip in a better place than where we began and I have bottled up a lot of shame and guilt and grief in my life in many many different ways and I think when my head cracked open on those tracks a lot of the pain that was released it forced me to examine my life in ways I hadn't in a really long time it just kind of gave me this new form of light in my life from such a dark violent attack yeah I'm fiercely independent and it can be a flaw of mine and this year really helped me see that I don't need that to be true anymore people care about me there are people that truly deeply love me for who I am and I think that's what this attack really showed me in the end was that I am loved and I can feel good saying that and it's not easy for me to say that I am loved you today's episode featured Joe Linsky if you'd like to reach out to Joe you can find his email and socials in the show notes news coverage related to Joe's incredible story along with links to his DJ bio and sounds can be found in Joe's link tree also found in the show notes from Wondry you're listening to this is actually happening if you love what we do please rate and review the show you can subscribe on Apple podcasts Amazon music or on the Wondry app to listen ad free and get access to the entire back catalog in the episode notes you'll find some links and offers from our sponsors by supporting them you help us bring you our show for free I'm your host Whit Missle Dine today's episode was co-produced by me and Andrew Wates with special thanks to that this is actually happening team including Ellen Westberg the opening music features the song sleep paralysis by Scott Velasquez you can join the community on that this is actually happening discussion group on Facebook or follow us on Instagram at actually happening on the show's website this is actually happening dot com you can find out more about the podcast contact us with any questions submit your own story or visit the store where you can find this is actually happening designs on stickers t-shirts wall art hoodies and more that's this is actually happening dot com and finally if you'd like to become an ongoing supporter of what we do go to patreon dot com slash happening even two to five dollars a month goes a long 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