Finest hour
En route to promotion, cop stops suicide
HEROES ARE always on duty.
An NYPD officer, hours before getting promoted to detective, stopped a suicidal man from jumping to his death beneath a rush-hour train at an Upper East Side subway station on Friday.
“I didn’t have too much time to think,” newly-minted Detective Walter Warkenthien told the Daily News. “I knew a train was coming and I just grabbed onto his backpack . . . and I dragged him all the way backwards to the emergency gate.”
Warkenthien, 28, was dressed in civilian clothes — and carrying a brand new NYPD hat — while making the trip into Manhattan from his Suffolk County home.
He was headed northbound on the No. 4 train to the 23rd Precinct Detective Squad to pick up his dress uniform.
The young cop was switching from the express train to the No. 6 local at the E. 86th St. station when he spotted the emotionally disturbed man sitting on the platform, his legs dangling over the edge.
“I’m going on the tracks,” the 42-year-old man warned the approaching Warkenthien. “I need my medication. I want to hurt myself.”
The soon-to-be detective pulled the distraught man for about 100 feet through the emergency gate, with one hand yanking the backpack and the other clutching his own blue hat.
“I didn’t want to stop until I was away from the tracks,” said Warkenthien, the son of a retired cop. “I was afraid of falling on the tracks myself.”
A construction worker and a medical orderly stepped in to help control the violently struggling man until the trio dragged him to safety.
A security video captured the young cop casually donning his hat when the job was done.
“The help from those gentlemen was huge,” the modest Warkenthien said of his effort. “Once we had him restrained, I was able to call 911 . . . “I’m just glad he didn’t go down on the tracks.”
The rescued man was taken to Cornell Presbyterian Hospital for evaluation, police said.
Warkenthien — on the force five years — was at Police Headquarters for the promotion ceremony by 2 p.m.
While Warkenthien downplayed the rescue, his father — a former NYPD detective who retired in 2008 — was quick to hail the officer’s efforts.
“I’m very proud of him and the whole family is,” said dad Walter, 49. “My first reaction when he called was ‘Oh my God, you’re supposed to get promoted today.’
“He goes, ‘Dad, his legs were hanging over the side of the thing. The train was going to hit him.’ I said, ‘Of course, of course.’” The elder Warkenthien was a bit more excited after watching his hero son collect a detective’s shield. “It was a feel-good day all around,” the father said. NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill was pleased but hardly surprised by Warkenthien’s heroics. “Even though he was technically off-duty, Walter did what NYPD cops do,” O’Neill said. “He did not hesitate. He literally put on his police hat and he did his job. “He saved a life this morning and it’s all in a day’s work." O’Neill also promoted to detective three cops who were shot in the line of duty but returned to work.
Patrick Espeut was struck in the face and his partner, Diara Cruz, in the stomach, just below her bullet-resistant vest, during a Bronx shootout with a gunman at the Melrose Houses in February 2016. Both recovered and returned to full duty. Andrew Yurkiw, was shot in his vest during a confrontation that same month with a man who had pointed a gun at a city bus driver was also promoted.
Yurkiw’s dad, Paul Yurkiw, now a retired NYPD detective, cheated death in 1989 when he was shot three times in his vest during a car stop on the Van Wyck Expressway.