Samuel L. Jackson has opened up about a terrifying ordeal he experienced on the subway in New York City that could have gotten him killed.
The Pulp Fiction actor appeared on Tuesday’s episode of Paloma Faith’s Mad Sad Bad podcast, where he recalled getting “dragged by a subway train in New York.”
“I was in the middle door of the last car, and it was a long-ass train station,” he said about the 1988 incident. “And when the door closed on my foot, [the] train took off. So I’m sitting there thinking, I’m like, ‘Oh, f***, I’m going to die.’”
The Unthinkable actor continued, “I could see the tunnel coming and I couldn’t figure out anything that I could grab or hold on to and get close to the train so I wouldn’t get killed in the tunnel.”
As he was being dragged by the train, he recalled thinking, “It was going to be a really sad Christmas, because it was like a few days before Christmas.”
![‘And when the door closed on my foot, [the] train took off,’ Jackson recalled](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/06/05/17/43/GettyImages-2202387968.jpeg)
“So I was going to miss my birthday and all that,” he said. “I was like, ‘Damn, it’s gonna be f ***ed up. It’s gonna be a f***ed up Christmas this year.’”
However, Jackson said the train had “just slowed down really, really slow” and eventually stopped before reaching the tunnel.
He previously discussed the accident in an interview with Vanity Fair in 2021, where he revealed it resulted in him tearing his ACL and meniscus, and he ended up spending 10 months on crutches and an entire year in rehab.
The actor later sued the New York Transit Authority and was awarded $540,000.
Speaking to Faith, Jackson said that during the court proceedings, he discovered how the train ended up stopping. “The guy who pulled the emergency cord was on crutches,” Jackson said.
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“Everybody else in there was trying to open the door, get my foot out the door, push and push and pull and try and take my shoe off. And he was going to the emergency cord and he finally pulled it and stopped it.”
Jackson continued to discuss his experience as he dispelled a common misconception about the moments before death. “That whole thing about your life passing before you, it’s like, ‘Eh, not really.’ Everything does slow down, though,” he said on the podcast.
“Things slow down when you’re looking at death,” he continued. “I’ve been in car accidents and if I see them, it’s almost like everything is slowing down and you know there’s nothing you can do to get out of the way.”
