The classic subway line — “Stand clear of the closing doors, please” — took on a far more personal meaning for Samuel L. Jackson one day in New York City.
“I got dragged by a subway train in New York in 1990,” he calmly revealed. “I got dragged by the A train.”
Jackson went on to describe a scene that could have been lifted straight from one of his own films. He set the moment with precision, recalling that he was at the “middle door of the last car” in a “long-ass train station.”
That’s when the door closed on his foot and the train began to move.
“I’m sitting there, thinking like, ‘Oh fuck, I’m going to die,’ because I could see the tunnel coming and I couldn’t figure out anything that i could grab or hold on to and get close to the train so that I wouldn’t get killed in the tunnel,” he said.
Fortunately, the train slowed down and eventually stopped. Jackson’s foot was free — and his life was spared. Jackson later revealed it took him “two years” — and a lawsuit against the New York transit system — to discover exactly what saved him. While frantic passengers struggled to free his foot, Jackson found out it was a man on crutches who hobbled over to the emergency cord and pulled it, stopping the train from completing its deadly journey.
“Things slow down when you’re looking at death,” Jackson said.
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