BILOXI, Miss. – A Moss Point, Miss., sailor serving aboard the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier in Japan had good reason for being late to work – he was risking his life to save a stranger.

Navy Seaman Phillip Simmons jumped onto the tracks of an oncoming commuter train to rescue a man who’d fallen from the platform during a seizure.

His supervisor shared the news of the daring rescue with the Sun Herald of Biloxi, Miss., last week.

“This was truly a selfless and heroic act that deserves recognition,” said Lt. j.g. Anthony Castleberry.

Had seizure

While Simmons waited for a train at Kenritsu Daigaku Station in Yokosuka, Japan, he saw a man stumble during a seizure and fall off the platform to the tracks below. Simmons jumped down and lifted the unconscious man up to fellow commuters on the platform, Castleberry said.

Simmons hurt his leg during the rescue and couldn’t climb back up easily. Then the music began to play.

Japanese stations play a warning tune when a train is approaching. “He jumped back up to the platform and was helped up by some of the other people a few seconds before the train passed by,” Castleberry said.

The man’s seizure continued, and Simmons, remembering a high school buddy who had a similar condition, worried the man might choke.

Pen in mouth

He used a pen to keep the man from biting his tongue and held him until an ambulance arrived, Castleberry said.

“I actually did not get the full story from Simmons until later that day,” Castleberry said. “I had heard some of the other people in our division talking about him saving someone’s life, but when I asked him, he just said that he had helped someone at the train station.”

Simmons, a 2005 graduate of Moss Point High School, said he didn’t consider the danger when he saw the man fall.

“I wasn’t really thinking about it at time, it just happened and I reacted. I didn’t even really realize what happened until after the fact,” Simmons said in an e-mail interview with the Sun Herald.

His quick action was acknowledged last week on the Kitty Hawk’s flight deck, where Simmons received plaques in English and Japanese calling his deed “a truly heroic act.”

Kitty Hawk’s commanding officer, Capt. Todd Zecchin, said Simmons was too modest. “He exemplifies the highest caliber of honor, courage and commitment,” Zecchin said in Stars & Stripes, a daily newspaper for the U.S. military.

Simmons also was recognized by the mayor of Yokosuka during a “Farewell Kitty Hawk” ceremony.

“We are all very proud of him and glad to be able to have his positive actions highlight the USS Kitty Hawk’s departure from Japan,” Castleberry wrote.

Kitty Hawk will be turning over duties as the Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier to the USS George Washington this summer. Kitty Hawk will return to the West Coast and is expected to be decommissioned in 2009.

Simmons said his parents, Earlean and John Simmons of Moss Point, are proud of their son and enjoy his newfound celebrity.

But would he have been as brave if he had known the train was so close? “I can’t really say what I would’ve done, but I like to think that I would have done the same thing to save him,” Simmons said.

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(c) 2008, The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.).

Visit The Sun Herald Online at http://www.sunherald.com/

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

AP-NY-05-24-08 1944EDT