A Daring Rescue Under a Subway Train Leads to an Emotional Reunion

Joseph Lynskey was shoved into the path of an oncoming train and survived. On Monday, he thanked the firefighters who rescued him.

Joseph Lynskey had never spent much time in a firehouse and was not sure what to expect.

But he certainly had not anticipated being greeted at the door by the commissioner of the New York Fire Department and a long line of firefighters and lieutenants waiting to shake his hand. “I’m Joe,” he said to one man and then the next, overwhelmed by the turnout.

When he reached the opposite side of the station, near the plaques memorializing fallen firefighters, Mr. Lynskey was facing John Montalbano and Johnathon Aquilina, the men who had climbed beneath a subway train to rescue him on Dec. 31 after he had been pushed onto the tracks.

A handshake felt insufficient. He wrapped one man and then the other in emotional hugs.

“I can’t thank you guys enough, everyone here, just from the bottom of my heart,” he said, pausing to collect himself, “for getting me out from under that train.” He added, “You saved my life.”

The reunion took place on Monday afternoon at the Engine 3, Ladder 12 and Battalion 7 firehouse in Chelsea, about a block away from the West 18th Street subway station in Manhattan where Mr. Lynskey, 45, was shoved from the platform into the path of a downtown 1 train.