New detective saves man en route to ceremony

A cop traveling to his own promotion ceremony on Friday saved a suicidal man’s life at a Manhattan subway station.

“I just did what we’re supposed to do,” newly minted Detective Walter Warkenthien told The Post.

Warkenthien was waiting for a downtown train in the 86th Street and Lexington Avenue subway station Friday morning when he saw an emotionally disturbed man sit down at the edge of the platform and dangle his legs off the side, muttering to himself.

“What’s going on?” Warkenthien asked him. “What are you doing, man?

“He said something about, ‘I’m going in. I need my meds,’ something along those lines,” the officer recalled.

So Warkenthien — whose father is a retired NYPD detective and whose late grandfather was a homicide detective in Suffolk County — sprang into action.

Still dressed in his jeans and civilian boots, he’d been holding onto his new detective’s cap, waiting to put it on at the ceremony itself — but instead, he popped it onto his head.

“I needed both my hands,” Warkenthien explained.

“And then, I just grabbed him,” he said of the disturbed man. “I didn’t know if the train was coming or not at that point.”

Warkenthien dragged the prone man by his backpack across the platform and through the emergency door by the turnstiles.

“I did not want anyone to end up on the tracks, him or me. So, I just backed him out of there. I didn’t stop until I got to the door.”

Two good Samaritans helped hold the man, and reinforcements arrived quickly.

“Once the boys in blue showed up, I said, ‘ OK, good.’ I talked to the higher-ups and they still let me get promoted, so I appreciate that,” Warkenthien joked.

He made it to Headquarters in time for the 2 p.m. ceremony.

“I’m the third detective in a row,” Warkenthien said afterwards, pointing at his dad.

His father, also named Walter, said his own NYPD service was spent in the Tactical Assistance Response Unit.

“I retired down there in 2008 as a detective. And then he followed my footsteps and did the same thing, pretty much,” the dad said of his son.

“When he called me, my first reaction was . . . ‘Oh, my God, you’re supposed to get promoted.’ And then he explained what’s going on. I said, ‘Of course. You’ve gotta go do what you gotta do.’

“This makes the day ten times better than it would have been,” the dad added. “It would have been great already. Imagine how proud I am now.”