DOOMED!

 Around lunch time on December 3rd, 2012, New York Post Photograher, Umar Abbassi, was making his way back to the office from a morning event, via the New York Subway system. 

While on the platform waiting for the train to arrive, Abbassi noticed two men arguing with each other. Not wanting to get involved, Abassi moved further away down the platform and began looking through his photos on his digital camera. 

After a couple of minutes, the arguing from the two men became louder, and other pedestrians waiting for the train began to move away from them., including Abbassi. 

Suddenly, there was screaming and Abbassi looked up from his camera and sees what no one wants to see. 

A Korean man named Ki-Suck Han, was now laying on the tracks in the subway well. As Abbassi watched, the man started to stand up, stumbled a bit, and then staggered over to the side of the platform where he attempted to pull himself up and out of the well. 

And then, to everyone's horror, just down the tracks, the lights from the Subway train could be seen heading into the station. 

According to Abbassi, although his claims are controversial, he was too far away to help the man, so he did the only thing he could think of. He set his camera to auto capture, meaning it would continue to take picture after picture, each time setting off the flash. According to Abbassi, his hope was that it would alert the conductor of the train that something was wrong and to pull the emergency brake. 

Unfortunately, it was too late. Ki-Suck Han was killed instantly when the train failed to stop. 

A 34 year old man, Naeem Davis was charged with Han's death, although he claimed it was in self defense. Five years later, when Davis' trial finally got underway, he was acquitted of all charges. Thanks to other photo evidence taken by other bystanders that day, it was ruled by the courts that there was enough evidence to support that Han, who was very drunk, was the instigator of the argument and approached Davis. When Davis pushed him to get him away from him, Han, in his drunken state, stumbled backwards and onto the Subway tracks. 

As disturbing as all of this is, what also has to be put into question is why no one on the platform that day stepped forward to help Han out of the well. According to reports, it was a good 80 or 90 seconds before the train arrived. There was enough time for Han to get up and make his way over to the ledge where he attempted to pull himself out, but didn't have the strength. 

The following day, on December 5th, 2012, the now infamous DOOMED photo appeared on the front page of the New York Post.

Afterwards, the paper and Abbassi received severe backlash for the photo. People wondered about Abbassi's character, although Abbassi has claimed all along that he was not close enough to help Han, and that he was only trying to alert the train conductor. 

The New York Post has always stood by their decision to publish the photograph. 

WARNING: Below is the front page headlines of the New York Post and Abbassi's photo.