No one and nothing saw it all, not the human eyes nor the Toronto Transit Commission video cameras, for there were none then on the subway platforms themselves.
What they caught, respectively, were pieces of an incident terrifying in its randomness and which but for one man's prudence and one boy's magnificent presence of mind, would have been fatal in its consequences.
It was Friday, Feb. 13, 2009.
At 16.33.32 by the TTC clock, or about 4:30 p.m. in the afternoon rush, Jacob Greenspon and four friends, on a day off from Northern Secondary School, were caught by a camera going through the turnstile at the Dufferin subway station.
It was the day after Jacob's 15th birthday; having been foiled at playing paintball - the lineups were too long - the boys were heading to Jacob's house to celebrate.
As befitted the birthday boy, Jacob, the son of The Globe and Mail's then editor-in-chief Ed Greenspon, was laughing, a huge grin on his face.
In another picture, shown closely following the group of laughing boys down to the platform, was a bulky man in tan pants, a three-quarter dark jacket, and a tuque with what looked to be a snowflake pattern.
This was Adenir De Oliveira, a 49-year-old Portuguese immigrant who now looks remarkably like the perfect department store Santa Claus, white-bearded, pink chubby cheeks, utterly benign.
Mr. De Oliveira is the man who allegedly, minutes after those pictures were taken, pushed Jacob and 14-year-old Asaf Shargall into the path of the eastbound train, onto the tracks.
Mr. De Oliveira is pleading not guilty to three counts of attempted murder (he allegedly also tried to push a third boy) and three counts of assault.
His lawyer, Ian Kostman, told Ontario Superior Court Judge Nancy Backhouse that he would offer "an NCR [not criminally responsible]defence," meaning that he will argue and call evidence to show that Mr. De Oliveira suffers from a mental disorder that renders him incapable of, as the Criminal Code puts it, "appreciating the nature and quality" of the act or knowing that it was wrong.
"I saw the two boys fall in," subway driver Jack Gajic told the judge. "One boy [this was Asaf]dove underneath the platform. The other one [Jacob]was frozen; he was scared I guess.
"He was looking right at me.
"Then I saw two hands reach for him."
This was Asaf, who grabbed Jacob somehow, lifted and flipped him over and under the safety of the platform, and, as prosecutor Marg Creal said in her opening statement, "saved Jacob's life and his own."
Mr. Gajic knew none of this yet. He threw the emergency brake and pressed the alarm to let his partner, the guard, know not to open the doors.
The train was still moving. Mr. Gajic felt a couple of awful bumps.
"I thought I killed him," he said. "I thought at the very least I cut his legs off."
He got out of the car and went to the end of the platform to cut the power to the 600-volt live rail. He could hear "the kids screaming," and people were telling him he'd run over a couple of boys. Almost everybody was shrieking, howling, he said.
TTC video pictures taken afterward showed the panic - one of Jacob and Asaf's friends chasing Mr. De Oliveira through the station; an unidentified man, his hands at his temples in horror, looking back down at the platform, and Mr. De Oliveira, appearing in a hurry and glancing back behind him.
Toronto police arrived, and Mr. Gajic opened the doors so they wouldn't have to crawl so far to get the boys out.
He saw that one boy was able to walk out on his own, while "the second had to be carried out."
Mr. Gajic had been driving subways for about two years at that point. Already, he'd developed the practice of starting to break before the brake markers appear in the tunnel.
Asked outside court whether perhaps this habit had played a part in Jacob's survival - after three weeks in hospital and several operations aimed at saving his toes, two toes on Jacob's left foot were amputated - Mr. Gajic smiled weakly and said, "I hope so."
He was off work for about seven months afterward, was "afraid to go back on the trains," but after counselling, eventually did so.
About three weeks ago, he was driving when there was an attempted suicide in front of his train. He's off again now.
No surprise that, though he's just 39, Mr. Gajic looks older and tired.
As for Mr. De Oliveira, according to Ms. Creal, when he was arrested not far from the subway station shortly afterward, he was taken to 14 Division to be processed. He was sobbing, but co-operative and responsive to questions. He asked for his medications, and an officer asked whether he was suicidal.
According to Ms. Creal, the Santa Claus look-a-like replied, "Someone give me a gun and I will shoot myself right now."
An earlier online version and the original newspaper version of this story incorrectly said the incident took place on Jacob's birthday and he lost three toes. This online version has been corrected.