Heroes: Subway Rescue (page 2 of 2)

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Photographed by Rudy Archuleta/Redux

Ismael Feneque and Lisa Donath nine months after the rescue.

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Donath's parents joined her at her hospital bedside by the next morning, which was also Thanksgiving, and stayed in town to see her through the series of surgeries she'd need to reconstruct her face. Once Donath returned to her job as a teen drug and alcohol counselor, two bystanders who'd helped her that day approached her independently on the subway and introduced themselves. But Donath was determined to find the man who had saved her life-the man the police had listed, incorrectly, as Feneque Ismael. "I was never really into going on TV or getting my picture put in the New York Times -- as you can imagine, having a scarred-up face isn't fun," says Donath. "But I did so to know that I tried everything I could [to contact him]."

Feneque, for his part, couldn't stop wondering what had happened to the woman on the tracks. He went on his own hunt, posting a message on a newspaper website asking if anyone knew whether the woman who'd fallen in the subway had survived. No one responded. Several weeks later, while surfing the Internet for any new clues … bingo! A television station had posted an update on its website, detailing Donath's recovery and her search for her rescuer. Feneque e-mailed the address provided to say that he was that man.

When the two first met, Donath threw her arms around Feneque and wept. It was overwhelming, she says, to try to convey her feelings. "What do you say to the person who saved your life?" When they met again several months later, for this photo shoot, it felt a lot easier. "I finally had the chance to hear his side of the story in detail," she says. "He really just seems like such a sweet and humble person."

Feneque says there's no point in wondering why he was on the platform-at a different time from when he usually rides and at a station a considerable distance from his apartment-at the moment Donath needed help. "Whether it was pure coincidence or sent from above, who's to say? All I know is I was there and I'd do it again," he says.

"I have a daughter. And I said to myself, I'm going to help this person. She could be anybody's daughter."

From Reader's Digest - November 2008

• Heroes

• Heroes: Jim Grant Braves Inferno
• Jim Grant could have kept driving. Instead, he braved a burning building to save a family in danger.
• 
• The Key Witness
• A cabdriver caught up in the Duke University rape case dares to tell the truth. He was selected as the Hero of the Year in 2007.
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• Over the Frozen Falls
• Two men brave an icy river to rescue a mother and child.
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