By DWAYNE MCBEAN
A crew of five Long Island Railroad workers were honored on Thursday for their quick call to action when a man fell in the tracks and got wedged between two rails at the East New York station in Brooklyn on Wednesday.
The rescue occurred during the morning rush hour.
LIRR President Phil Eng presented the crew members with individual plaques with their names on them.
“With no regard for personal risks, these five heroes stepped in to calm the customer while notifying oncoming trains of the situation and calling for EMS help,” said Eng. “Simply put, they saved his life yesterday.”
The five employees – Gregory Hartley, Kevin Rattigan, Larry Woods, Stacy Augustine, and Shelwyn Hendy, (all of whom have worked for the LIRR over a decade, some for more than 20 years) happened to be in the area around 7 a.m. after completing a job briefing, when they heard a loud noise, described as a “thud.”
“I can’t say anybody really knows what a body sounds when it falls on the ground or a track, but we heard it,” Hartley said. “We turned around… we didn’t see anything…we [saw] passengers on the opposite side of the track looking down, [and] that’s when we noticed the [passenger on the tracks.]”
Besides the danger posed by the possibility of an oncoming train the crew knew that the electrification of the tracks also posed a great risk.
“When we saw the individual on the tracks, he was sitting in between the running rail and the third rail,” said Hendy. “Since the [rail] was live, that was one of my biggest concerns.”
The crew sprang into team action, notifying incoming trains, establishing a block on the track, and then helping the man out of the wedged track by loosening his shoelaces, getting his foot out of the shoe, and avoiding contact between him and the “live” or electrified rail.
MTA officials said the crew did not know until after the incident that there actually was a train coming, just a few minutes away.
“This couldn’t have gone any better if we had practiced it,” said Woods. “I did what I could to help, the man was very disoriented and I was nervous that he was going to touch that rail. I’m just glad we were all able to get out of there safely.”
While it is not clear what caused the passenger to fall, MTA officials said the customer was able to walk away from the incident without needing further medical treatment. When the NYPD and the FDNY arrived on the scene, he denied medical attention.
His name was not released.
“All of us as a team saved this man’s life, and he’s able to go home to his family because of us,” said Hendy.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.