Hero subway worker saves rider's life with CPR

NEW YORK (FOX5NY.COM) - A cool-headed, fast-acting, and medically trained subway conductor saved a sick rider's life in Queens this week, the MTA said.

Kevin Bartsch was on duty on a Manhattan-bound F train Wednesday evening when two passengers got his attention about an unconscious man on a subway car two cars back, he said.

He went to investigate and found a man slumped over a seat. The man had no pulse and his lips were blue, said Bartsch, who happened to be a trained emergency medical technician.

Bartsch asked some riders to help him get the man on the floor of the car, began chest compressions, and then radioed for help.

Within minutes, MTA EMT Christian Winn arrived with a defibrillator but the sickly commuter came to.

"By the time I had applied the pads of the AED, the patient rose up," Winn said. "He was a little combative, afraid, not sure what was going on."

The rattled man tried to jump up and push past his rescuers.  

"'Listen, you just died—stop, OK, relax,'" Bartsch told the man, who apparently didn't want to go to the hospital.

By then the FDNY and NYPD had arrived.

"They walked him off the train, up the stairs, under escort," said Bartsch, who then returned to his spot in the middle car to close the doors so the train could get back underway.