Wantagh man who fell on tracks thanks rescuers

Retired NYPD officer Brenden Crowe rushed to the edge of the subway platform, looked down and saw an unconscious man sprawled on the track, blood dripping from a gash on the back of his head as a train approached the station.

Bystanders gasped as Crowe, 50, of Malverne, and an unidentified onlooker jumped onto the track to help the man as Crowe yelled, "All the men get down here now!"

Crowe and the other man were quickly joined by Jay Schneider, 43, a steamfitter from North Merrick and another unidentified man. Together they lifted Michael Lodespoto of Wantagh to safety.

Four days later, Lodespoto finally met Crowe and Schneider, until then his anonymous rescuers, at his Wantagh home.

"Thank you both," Lodespoto said as he greeted the pair in his living room. "It's a gathering of saints here today."

He hugged Crowe and Schneider and served up iced tea. They talked about chance and how events conspired to turn two regular guys into heroes Friday morning at Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn.

Lodespoto, an MTA architect, had taken the 5:37 a.m. LIRR train from Wantagh, Crowe the 5:55 a.m. from Lynbrook and Schneider the 5:43 a.m. from Merrick. Around 6:30 a.m., the three strangers were on a platform waiting for a subway train to take them to lower Manhattan, where they work.

Lodespoto suddenly felt weak and dizzy. He leaned against a column and then lost consciousness, falling to the tracks and gashing the back of his head. Such accidents can be deadly. So far this year, according to the NYPD, there have been five accidental fatalities on city subway tracks.

Crowe, who works in security at the U.S. attorney's office, and Schneider heard cries of "Oh my God!" Both men say they could see the lights of the train approaching, but it was moving slowly. City transit officials say the train may have been negotiating a turn into the station at the time.

"You could see the lights getting brighter and brighter," Schneider said. "It was definitely coming."

Crowe and Schneider, together with the two other men, lifted the 175-pound Lodespoto up to the platform, where a woman who apparently had medical experience tended to him and waited for emergency personnel to arrive.

"In my mind I still feel like a police officer, even though I'm retired now," Crowe said. "I just felt compelled to go down there to help him."

Crowe's wife, Margaret, 49, said that's just what she would expect of her husband, who comes from a family of lawmen and firefighters. "It's just in his blood," she said. "He could never pass by someone and not stop to help."

Schneider, an avid saltwater fisherman, said he acted automatically: "It was just instinct. It wasn't about being a hero. It was just, 'Oh my God, I have to help this man.' "

According to city transit officials, the train approaching the platform was held at the station from 6:46 until 6:49 a.m., the same time the FDNY says a call came in from the location about a man who had fallen on the tracks. Lodespoto was taken to Kings County Hospital, but doctors weren't able to determine what caused him to faint.

For Lodespoto, a father and grandfather, the rescue is hazy. He remembers people supporting his limbs as he was lifted up. But Tuesday he put names and faces to some of those who helped save him. He's thinking about having the men over for a party sometime, and expects to run into them again on his commute.

"I'll be seeing both you guys at the station," he said. "It's like a ready-made group of angels."