Michael Gold and Alex Traub

The man, Fernando Balbuena-Flores, 45, was hit by a southbound No. 4 train at the elevated Kingsbridge Road station in the Bronx shortly before 8 a.m. and was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.

The girl, who only had some cuts, was taken to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx and was in stable condition, officials said. She was met there by her mother, Niurka Caraballo.

At around 5:30 p.m., Caraballo; her daughter, whose name was not released; and a man who said he was the girl’s godfather arrived at the five-story, red brick building on the Grand Concourse where Caraballo and the girl have lived with Balbuena-Flores.

After going into the building, Caraballo re-emerged and, in Spanish, briefly addressed a crowd of reporters and neighbors gathered outside the building.

“The girl is in perfect condition,” she said. “Thank God and the angels who watched over her. Everything is OK, except that now I’m without my husband.”

Leidy Martinez, a resident of the building who said that she did not know Balbuena-Flores personally, said she had been on the Kingsbridge Road platform on Monday morning and had watched the fatal episode unfold.

“When the train was approaching, oh my God, he took that girl and he jumped,” Martinez, 49, said.

Video shot by a person on the northbound platform showed two men on the tracks pulling the girl, whose name had not been released, out from under a subway car.

In the video, the girl appears to be alert as she crawls out from under the train, her pink backpack briefly catching on the car’s underside before the two men hoist her onto the platform, which is packed with rush-hour commuters.

One of the men who helped the girl off the tracks, Antonio Love, 32, said that he had been walking near the Kingsbridge Road station when he heard people screaming. He said that when he ran up to the platform, he saw that another man was already trying to help the girl.

Love said that when he jumped onto the tracks, he saw Balbuena-Flores’ body beneath the train’s wheels. The girl was crying and there was blood on her head, Love said.

“The only thing she was saying was ‘Papa, my papa,’” he said.

The two men called to the girl, Love said, and she soon crawled toward them.

Love and the second man were taken to St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx with minor injuries, the Fire Department said.

At the hospital, Love, whose yellow sweatshirt was stained with blood, said he was just “a little banged up.” Mostly, he said, he was shocked by what he had seen.

He said he was especially dismayed to see so many people on the platform taking out their phones but not doing anything to help.

“It was just panicking,” he said. “Like regular New Yorkers, pulling out their phones. Really? Let’s get down there and help.”

To add further insult, Love said, that he left his bag on the platform when he jumped onto the tracks. When he went back to retrieve it, it was gone.

“Why would somebody do that?” he said. “I’m saving their lives and someone took my bag.”

The operator of the train, a 20-year veteran of the job, was being treated for trauma and evaluated, transit union representatives said.

“Our thoughts are with the family members as well as with our employees who responded,” Shams Tarek, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman, said in a statement. “This is a traumatic event for everyone involved.”

Officials said they did not know what might have prompted Balbuena-Flores to jump into the train’s path.

Anthony Woods, the assistant superintendent at the building where Balbuena-Flores lived, said he was stunned to hear about the death. He recalled Balbuena-Flores as a good father who would take his daughter to the park three times a day.

“Wherever he goes, she goes,” Woods said. “The only place he doesn’t take her is work.”

As of July 22, at least 32 people this year had been killed after being hit by trains, the transit authority said. Overall, trains hit 103 people who were on tracks or platforms in that period.

Last year, 68 people died as a result of being hit by trains, and there were 189 total collisions, the authority said.

Transit officials said last year that they were contending with a worrying rise in the number of people going onto subway tracks, and not only to attempt suicide.

Officials have suggested that riders who see someone who appears to be emotionally distressed should press the “emergency” button on a Help Point station or notify a subway worker.

The death Monday was reminiscent of an episode at another Bronx subway station in June 2018, when a woman jumped onto the subway tracks with her 2-month-old son. In that instance, the mother and child were uninjured.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

This article originally appeared in

5-Year-Old Girl Survives Father's Fatal Leap Onto Subway Tracks

NEW YORK — A Bronx man was killed and his 5-year-old daughter was injured early on Monday after he apparently jumped in front of a subway train while holding onto the girl, police said.

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Michael Gold and Alex Traub

Articles written by the author

5-Year-Old Girl Survives Father's Fatal Leap Onto Subway Tracks