Which real New Yorker inspired Dennis Duffy's actions in "Subway Hero"?

Dennis Duffy’s actions in “Subway Hero” are inspired by Wesley Autrey.

In the 30 Rock episode, Dennis becomes celebrated after apparently saving a person on the subway tracks. The storyline draws directly on the widely reported heroics of Wesley Autrey, a New York City construction worker and Navy veteran who rescued a man who had fallen onto the tracks after suffering a seizure.

Autrey’s real-life rescue occurred on January 2, 2007, at the 137th Street–City College station in Manhattan. He jumped down and covered Cameron Hollopeter in a drainage trench as a train passed over them. The train’s operator braked, and both men survived. Autrey later received New York City’s Bronze Medallion and national recognition, including inclusion in Time magazine’s 2007 list of the world’s most influential people.

The episode uses the real event as a comic foundation for Dennis’s opportunism and questionable character. Jimmy Breslin was a New York writer, Joe Lhota was a transit executive and politician, and Bernie Goetz was associated with a separate 1984 subway shooting. None inspired Dennis’s specific rescue story.