'Viking Guy' video of ex-LIer Adrian Kaczmarek goes viral

Social media has dubbed a former Long Islander “Heroic Viking Guy” after he subdued an unruly, shirtless man threatening passengers on a Los Angeles Metro train.

Soon after Adrian Kaczmarek, 33, put the man in a chokehold, holding him for authorities, a video showing the Saturday night encounter on the Metro’s Expo Line train went viral.

The tag, “Heroic Viking Guy,” apparently picked up steam after someone posted on YouTube that Kaczmarek, came down as hard as “Thor’s Hammer.”

“I didn’t really want to confront the guy, because he was acting so erratically, but I knew I probably wasn’t going to be able to reason with him,” he said in an interview, adding that he thought it better to subdue the man than exchange blows.

The video, uploaded March 20, has more than 17.5 million views and 33,000 comments on Facebook, as of Thursday night.

Kaczmarek moved with his family from Poznan, Poland to Port Jefferson Station in 1994, and graduated from Comsewogue High School, where he was an all-league shooting guard in 2001 and 2002. He spent two years at Suffolk Community College, before moving to Los Angeles to work as a manager and personal trainer at a gym.

Though Kaczmarek now stands an imposing 6’3”, he was once “picked on” as a child, according to his sister, Natalia Cieslak, 37, of Farmingville. “He was a late bloomer, but when he finally got bigger, he always stood in defense of his friends,” she said, citing an incident in which Kaczmarek broke his arm protecting a friend being mugged.

He sprang into action again during his daily commute from downtown Los Angeles at about 8 p.m. on March 19, when Kaczmarek says he saw the shirtless man threatening other passengers. The video shows Kaczmarek approach the man from behind, put him in a chokehold, lower him to the floor and then put his foot on the man’s chest.

NBC Los Angeles reported that a transit officer arrived, and the man, 25, was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance, according to authorities.

Kaczmarek said he’s been “completely shocked” by all the attention the video has gotten, and has received calls praising his actions from as far off as the Philippines, Ukraine and his hometown in Poland.

“At the end of the day, I’m glad I was just able to stop the situation,” Kaczmarek said.