A subway train operator in Brooklyn was grateful Friday for the gut instinct that saved a bunch of kids trying to surf atop his Manhattan-bound F train on Friday.
Train operator Anthony Outieral was piloting the F train through Midwood at around 1:50 p.m. when, he told the Daily News, he clocked “four or five” youths dressed in black board his train at Kings Highway.
“Just from their eyes I knew they were going to try some stunt,” he said.
As the train pulled out of the station, Outieral’s conductor radioed to the front of the train that the kids were riding on top of the cars.
Outieral said he brought the train to a stop and called the MTA rail control center.
“You try and make as smooth and controlled a stop as you can,” he said. “We weren’t going too fast at that moment.”
When the train stopped, the kids climbed back into the car, and the conductor went to speak to them, Outieral said.
He radioed rail control again to report that the would-be surfers were back inside, and received word he was cleared to move the train again.
But a last-minute instinct on the part of the train motorman likely saved the surfers’ lives.
“Something told me to just pop my head out the window and take a look back,” Outieral told The News.
“As I did that, I saw them climbing down between the cars [onto the tracks],” he said of the kids. “Had I moved, it would have been a different story.”
“Even if you pull off slow, if they’re dropping down between the cars they’re going to get dragged underneath the train,” he said.
The youths ran back onto the platform and fled, Outieral said.
“You say you’ve got an angel, or a gut instinct, or whatever you want to call it,” the train operator mused. “My guardian angel was looking out for me and those kids today.”
The near-death incident took place a little more than an hour after a 13-year-old boy was caught trying to subway surf just up the tracks at the Bay Parkway station.
Sources told The News transit workers spotted the boy around 12:30 p.m., opening the emergency door at the end of a Manhattan-bound F train and clambering onto the roof.
The transit workers immediately notified police and held the train until cops arrived.
When the subway failed to move, the boy climbed back down, exited the train, and tried to crawl beneath the stopped train in an apparent effort to avoid police, sources said.
Cops eventually apprehended the boy on the Manhattan-bound platform without incident, and with no apparent injuries, police said.
The twin train-surfing attempts come less than 24 hours after a 14-year-old fell from the top of a B train Thursday afternoon along the same stretch of track. That boy received lacerations to his head and limbs, but is expected to recover.
John Chiarello, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents MTA subway workers, lauded his members, and said the incidents underscored the importance of two-person train crews.
“If not for the teamwork of our members, we might have had five more fatalities today,” he said in a statement. “A single worker on that train would not have had the chance to see what was happening and put a stop to the train, and five families could well be heartbroken tonight.”
