EAST VILLAGE — A Con Edison supervisor on his way to work Saturday night leapt into action when he saw a man tumble onto the tracks moments before an L train was scheduled to arrive.
Jonathan Kulig, 29, of Glendale said he was walking down the platform of the Third Avenue station when he saw something fall onto the opposite tracks — when he heard onlookers exclaiming in horror, he realized a person had tumbled into the tracks, and he had no time to lose.
"I heard the train was coming in a minute, so I knew the guy didn't have time," he said.
Without hesitating, Kulig jumped down and crossed the two sets of tracks to reach the barely conscious man.
"There wasn't hesitation," he said, explaining he knew to avoid the third rails and to locate a place of safety in case the train came roaring down the tracks, thanks to his training from Con Ed. "I knew what I had to do before I jumped down."
A video taken by onlooker Parker Van de Graaf, 15, of Seattle shows Kulig hoisting the fallen man onto the platform. A train rushes by about a minute later.
The video was first released by the New York Post.
Kulig then tried to assess the man's condition with another good Samaritan while waiting for police and emergency responders.
Onlookers in the video are heard saying the man was stumbling around the platform, bumping into things before taking the tumble.
The man was taken to Lenox Health Greenwich Village with non-critical injuries, according to an FDNY spokesman.
Kulig, an engineering supervisor whose offices are near the subway station, said he normally wouldn't have been going to work on a Saturday evening but was working on a special project.
"I was just in the right place to see what was going on at the right time," he said. "It was kind of one of those things."
Con Edison commented on the video shared by CBS on Facebook to praise its hero employee.
