This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
One spring afternoon in 2011, Jeremy Clifton was in a rush.
He was living in Atlanta, trying to make ends meet, working as a tutor, a guitar teacher and fitness instructor.
On that day, he was running late to one of his many gigs.
But as he waited for a train on the subway platform, I just heard a scream.
And I looked down to my left, and there was a guy down on the tracks.
And so I ran to him, and I was about to reach him until someone yelled to me, don't touch him, don't touch him.
Don't touch him.
Because he was right next to the third rail.
The third rail, of course, is the live rail.
It's surging with enough electricity to kill someone who touches it.
In fact, first responders are taught to never grab someone who is in contact with the third rail because they could get electrocuted, too.
I was, like, just 6ft above him and trying to get him to move, and he began to come to, and he moved his arm and he made contact with the third rail, and just sparks flew up and down his body.
And I thought he was dead.
Like, I thought it was done, but it didn't kill him.
And he looked up at me and he reached out his hand to me, and I was like, ah.
Oh, no.
And I just grabbed his hand and helped pull him up out of the subway tracks.
Jeremy experienced a bolt of electricity shoot through him as he pulled the man up from the tracks.