Man Killed by Subway Train Was Music-Loving Dad

This is the man who was fatally run over by a southbound B train at the Central Park West and 110th St. station; his name was Shem Herman and he was the father of a 2-year-old son, Dylan. The 33-year-old Washington Heights man had jumped down onto the subway tracks to recover his iPod when he was killed by the oncoming train. Yesterday reporters tracked down his distraught wife and mother, so keep reading if you're not sad enough today.

According to wife Claribel Espinosa, he was very attached to his iPod. "He loved music," a "sobbing" Espinosa told the Daily News. "When his MP3 fell, he went to get it. That's how much he loved music... He just wasn't fast enough to get out." Herman was a freelance music writer who was also enrolled at Bronx Community College.

A lifelong Manhattan resident, his grandparents escaped the Nazis in Austria during World War II. His mother told the News, "He's very young and kind of adventurous, so maybe he thought he could pull the iPod out of the tracks."

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By John Del Signore in News on December 16, 2009 2:38 PM

Comments [rss]

cabriniblvd

Nah. I knew Shem personally. He lived with a highly dysfunctional family mainly due to drugs with a penchant for suicide (his aunt). Shem was a heroin user but GOD has plans for all of us. Need I say more? RIP

WorksInDUMBO

Wow, you guys are cold. The guy died, and leaves behind a wife and a kid. It was a tragic mistake.

sexisicilian

Why didn't he think about his kid? We all luv our music, are young & adventurous but I, for one, am not gonna jump on the tracks for shit like that!

newport27

thank you herman for disproving a myth

NewHCE

Didn't he know that his current model would be obsolete in 2 months?

Ex Machina

Will Ipod's now come with a disclaimer not to retrieve them if it risks your life?

Trilby16

People do stupid things and die. There was a baker who crawled uder a neighbor's house to see how his foundation repair was coming along. It fell on him. There was a man who climbed a tree to rescue a cat (not even a kitten!) and fell and died. I knew (not well) these two knuckleheads. RIP. You gotta think, people, always be thinking.

nicemarmot

I was watching a TV show not too long ago that commented on the accidental death statistics. Apparently guys 15-45 are much more likely to die doing something stupid than almost any other cause of death. They think the testosterone makes them dumb. Act first, brain function later!

Though in this case, I'm just baffled. Why not just wait till the train passed, then hop down? I dropped my hat on the tracks once and waited, then got it, then climbed out with the help of the then-bf. I personally couldn't have done it alone, but I'm sure I could have managed it alone if I was as tall as your average male.

chuzzlewit

"climbed out with the help of the then-bf"

and here I thought chivalry was dead.

eyekantspel

sad would be if he died trying to save someone else's life. not an ipod. tragic fail.

ides_of_march

If he thought as much about his family as he did his iPod, he might still be around for them. If you have people who depend on you, you just don't risk your life so frivolously. This man was so jaw-droppingly stupid. It's a pity his family have to deal with this pointless tragedy.

Wza

Agreed.

zodak

he's an hero

JP Lynch

Darwinism hard at work.

schadenfreudian mensch

Too late. He's already passed on his genes. Let's hope his 2yr old son has a better sense of value between an ipod and one's life.

kc2slg

I feel bad for the train operator.

Malcolm Tucker

Jesus Fucking Christ. Buy another iPod.

fuboy

I can't tell if this is a sad story or not. Man does something stupid that puts his life at risk and subsquently looses his life. Did he think this was Raiders of the Lost Ark and he needed to grab his fedora before the stone door slammed shut forever? Not like a suicide, but stupid on a Wily Coyote level if he didn't notice the danger of an oncoming train.

The mother's denial line is hands down one of the best I've seen. "He's very young". Ma'am, his 2 year old son is very young. At 33, he's a grown man.

OTC

I'd think dumbass is a better description than "Music Lover", they going to tell his son that Daddy died saving a $150 iPod.

pastoralia

This story puzzles me...how de he not see/hear/feel a train coming? Unless it was laying right on the rail...he could have waited for a train to pass before he went down to retrieve his ipod.