TRELANE SPENCER
MAINTENANCE SUPERVISOR
Seconds before a train barreled into a Queens subway station, Trelane Spencer, a sharp-eyed maintenance supervisor who had just finished inspecting the tracks, spotted a man who had fallen off the platform at the 65th St. station on the Queens Blvd. line. Risking his own life to save a stranger, Spencer, 38, jumped from the platform and darted across four sets of tracks where express trains chug through at full speed — all while carefully avoiding a pair of third rails.
“It’s a good thing we got there,” Spencer, of Brooklyn, said of the March 24 rescue. “Maybe within 20 seconds, a train was coming in the station.”
Even with the difficult responsibility of keeping the tracks in good working condition, public safety is still a priority for him.
“You’re thinking of somebody losing their life,” he said. “That was my main focus.”