If you have ever been to New York City, then you know how important the subway system is. It’s an extremely efficient mode of transportation – over 4.3 million people ride it every day!
As a result, when there’s a huge delay on the subway system, it affects so many people’s schedules and agendas.
A recent subway delay on May 30, 2017, left Jerich Marco Alcantara completely stressed out.
Alcantara was on his way to his graduation from Hunter College’s Brookdale campus. Donning his graduation cap and gown, Alcantara was looking forward to the culmination of his higher education experience. According to NYMag, Alcantara opted to skip the general commencement ceremony at Radio City Music Hall because he was only given two tickets. He wanted his entire family and all of his friends to attend, so the nursing school-specific ceremony meant that much more to him.
While traveling on the E train from Queens to Manhattan, the train unexpectedly got stuck in a tunnel.
“The train’s emergency brakes went off and they couldn’t fix it for an hour and a half,” Alcantara tells Fox 5 NY. “So after that they called rescue trains to pick us up, and those didn’t show up for another 20 or 30 minutes.”
The train would sit in that very tunnel for another 3 hours.
“I was on track to be at my commencement at 9:15 a.m., but the delays altogether ended up taking almost three hours,” Alcantara tells NYMag. “After 45 minutes, I knew I was already late, but I kept hoping that I’d at least make it to walking the stage.”
That’s when something incredible happened.
A group of total strangers on the train hosted an impromptu graduation ceremony for Alcantara right there on the train.
A friend presented Alcantara with a “diploma” via a cell phone while another person played Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” as loud as possible.
“We got my buddy to hand me the diploma that he drew up on his phone, and he handed it to me, shook my hand like he was the dean; it was great,” Alcantara said.
A stranger managed to capture the entire event on camera.
Poor kid missed his graduation because of the train delay this morning….so we threw him a graduation on the train.
Posted by Nadiya Afzal on Tuesday, May 30, 2017
It was an awesome gesture by a group of Good Samaritans. They helped make this graduate’s day despite such an unfortunate event.
By the time Alcantara and his group arrived at the ceremony, they were already too late. But then fellow nursing students told him to meet them in the auditorium.
“And they played some music for me there as well,” he said. “They had me walk down the center aisle, walk across the stage just as if I was doing graduation with them.”
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