UES Hunter College Subway Hero: 'I Saw A Man In Need'

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A union electrician working the night shift became a subway hero when he saved a 74-year-old man who was shoved to the tracks inside an Upper East Side subway station early Tuesday morning.

"I saw a man in need, and no one else nearby to help him," said Pooran Mohabir, an electrical foreman, South Ozone Park resident and now, local hero. "And quickly, before another train arrived.”

Mohabir, 33, was busy working on the ADA and modernization upgrades to the 68th Street - Hunter College station on the overnight shift when he heard shouting from the platform below just after midnight on Sept. 12 .

"I originally thought nothing of it, until I went down to the platform to see for myself," Mohabir, a 13-year veteran with UEWA Local 363, said.

When he ran down to see what was happening, Mohabir saw the 74-year-old man lying injured on the train tracks and the suspect fleeing up the station's stairs.

There were just a few people inside the station just after midnight, and he was the only one who made moves to help the attacked senior.

Mohabir said he saw every electrician's nightmare: the 600-volt electrified third rail was dangerously close to the injured man's head.

"His head was only a foot and a half away from the third rail, which I knew could be fatal," Mohabir said

In January, a man was killed at the same station after coming in contact with the third rail.

Mohabir pulled the victim off the tracks and stayed with him until police arrived.

“There wasn’t a second thought in my mind that I needed to help this man," the hero electrician said.

Work will continue at the station until at least December 2024, the MTA said in a March Community Board 8 meeting.