Experts sometimes fail us. Police officers and firemen can't be everywhere at once. Fortunately, on those rare occasions when qualified individuals can't be found, a random nobody is sometimes waiting in the wings, ready to toe-kick fate in the genitals and save the day.

6 The Construction Worker Who Dove Under a Subway to Save a Man

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The Nobody:

Wesley Autrey was a 50-year-old construction worker and Navy veteran living in New York City.

The Clutch:

Autrey was waiting on the subway platform with his kids when a man named Cameron Hollopeter (which is the porniest name since Big Dick Gigglefist) fell to the floor and began convulsing. Autrey and two other bystanders went to Hollopeter's aid and brought him back to his feet -- which is exactly what you don't want to do. Sure enough, Hollopeter took a few steps and fell right off the platform and onto the tracks below just as the train started to roll in, setting the scene for a spectacular obituary.

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"Cameron Hollopeter: Lived fast, died at about 63 mph."

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With no real plan in mind, since the seconds it would take to develop a plan would be just enough time for Hollopeter to be erased by the train, Autrey jumped onto the tracks, not wanting his two daughters to witness the horrific squishing of a human being via train. At first, he tried moving Hollopeter back onto the platform, but the man's convulsing hadn't stopped, making him impossible to lift out of harm's way in time. Luckily, a narrow trench in the center of the rails caught Autrey's eye.

It was little more than a shallow drainage gutter and probably didn't look anywhere close to big enough to shelter a man from a speeding train that was about to come roaring overhead. Autrey, of course, didn't have time to get out his measuring tape, so he just rolled Hollopeter into the trench and lay on top of him to try and keep him from flopping around. There was nothing else for him to do but hope the combined height of his body on top of Hollopeter's would be low enough to miss being fatally shaved off like Italian ice.

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Ladies and gentlemen, meet No. 1 on Cracked's list of "Worst Times to Pop a Boner."

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The train's operator saw them laying right there between the tracks and hit the brakes, but the subway didn't come to a full stop until two cars had passed over them. To the witnesses on the platform (most notably Autrey's young children), it appeared that the two men locked in a life or death man-hug had most likely been crushed.