By Murray Weiss, Sonja Sharp and Tom Liddy
DNAinfo Staff
UPPER WEST SIDE — A man was struck by a train on the Upper West Side during the morning commute Thursday after a raucous dustup with another straphanger about sleeping on the crowded subway car, witnesses and authorities said.
The bizarre incident, which unfolded aboard a 1 train near the 66th Street station just before 9:30 a.m., left the man with a fractured skull and injuries to his pelvis and ended with a train full of commuters traumatized by the sight of the injured man laying on the tracks.
A witness told DNAinfo that the fight started when a straphanger on his way to work got onto the train and began shouting at a disheveled-looking man who was sprawled out across at least two seats.
"I pay my taxes so I can take the subway to work," the straphanger yelled at the sleeping man, sparking a shouting match, according to the witness.
"Your mother's a f---ing whore," the witness said he heard the straphanger shout.
The disheveled man, who witnesses said was wearing a backpack, got off the train at the 66th Street station, trading profanities with the other passenger.
"Come off the train you little piece of s--t," witnesses heard the man shout.
When the doors of the car closed, the disheveled man sprinted toward the moving train and bodyslammed himself into it, getting caught between the car and the platform, the witness said.
"I saw him fall between the train and the platform," said another witness, who didn't give his name. He said he yelled at the conductor to stop the train.
"His face was torn apart," the second witness said.
"He had a big gash on his head. I saw his skull."
The train screeched to a halt and the conductor directed the traumatized passengers to file out through the train to the adjoining cars before opening the doors to allow them to exit.
A witness saw the man who sparked the fight make a beeline for the subway station exit, sources said.
Emergency crews retrieved the disheveled man from the tracks and rushed him to New York Hospital with injuries that were not considered life threatening, police said.
Police could not immediately confirm the witness accounts, but said that there was no criminality suspected.
