NYC subway rider hit by train after frantic commuter bumps him onto tracks — but miraculously survives
A straphanger was hit by a train Thursday after a frantic commuter knocked him onto the tracks – but he somehow survived the ordeal and now the shover is facing charges.
Emmanuel Paul, 20, jumped a staircase railing and bumped into the 34-year-old victim at the Jay Street-MetroTech Station at around 11 a.m., sending the straphanger onto the roadbed, sources said.
He was dragged by the R train as Paul tried to help him back up, sources added.
Authorities brought the victim to Brooklyn Methodist in stable condition, and the NYPD took the alleged shover into custody, according to cops and sources.
He’s been hit with two counts of reckless endangerment, sources said. One charge is a felony, the other is a misdemeanor.
A family who witnessed the ordeal told The Post that it appeared the suspect had knocked over the victim accidentally.
“We were coming down the stairs, and we were going to get on the R train and there was a guy walking behind us,” said Josh Genera, a 19-year-old student from Texas who watched the horrifying ordeal go down.
“He was wearing a black hoodie, he hopped over the banister and another guy simultaneously was walking on the side,” Genera continued. “It was literally just a freak — wrong place and time, for both of them. And it just knocked him in.”
Genera said the accidental subway shover tried valiantly to save the victim, who was “freaking” because he knew the train was coming.
“He was trying to pull him out … trying to pick him up,” Genera said. “But the train’s coming, so he stopped and [we saw] this guy get hit. And immediately we were all like, ‘That’s it.’ We thought he was underneath the train.”
But somehow, the victim survived by clinging to the platform, witnesses said — even as the train pulled him about 100 feet down the rails.
“He was like clinging onto the platform,” said mom Amber Hughes, a 38-year-old bartender from Georgia. “When the train stopped, he was still holding on at track-level.”
“His chest was super red … it was internal,” she said of his injuries. “His ribs were definitely broken.”
So she walked over and began to pray with him, she said.
“I felt like I needed to go there,” Hughes said. “Everyone was standing back, I couldn’t.”
“His eyes were glossy, and he was in shock while I was looking at him,” she said. “But then you could see he was beginning to feel pain. The shock was wearing off, and then he sat up and was looking around and he started to yell out.”
Also by his side was the man who knocked him onto the tracks, Hughes said.
“He was with him until the police came, then they separated them,” she said. “He was very distraught. He was freaking out. In complete remorse, immediately. It was a freak accident.”
Her husband, Justin, a 43-year-old who works for the Georgia Department of Transportation, said the pusher was “beside himself” with worry.
“He was trying to comfort him as he was lying on the ground,” Justin said. “He was there until they told him they had to question him. You could tell he felt remorse.
“I’m just blessed that he survived,” Justin said, adding that the victim looked like he had road rash down the side of his body.
“I would never think that someone could survive that.”
