A Chelsea bartender was dragged to his death by a subway train on a crowded platform, cops and witnesses said Tuesday.
Edward Leonard, 51, was pulled about 60 feet by the Manhattan-bound F train as it pulled out of the Kew Gardens-Union Turnpike station at around 6:45 p.m. on Monday.
Some witnesses told cops that a piece of the man’s clothing became caught in the closing doors. A source close to the probe said the victim was banging on the side of the train when he was thrown to the platform.
“He got dragged by the train car,” said witness Bernice Maitland, 61, who was coming off the F train that Leonard was trying to board. “The driver [of the train] was not aware he was stuck,” she said, adding that the train did not stop and Leonard was dragged about 60 feet.
Leonard wound up battered and bloodied on the platform and missing a shoe, she said. “I was frantic. I was crying,” said Maitland. “The man was still breathing as I saw him on the platform.”
Leonard, who was a bartender at the Cambria Hotel in Chelsea, suffered blunt-force trauma, cops said. He was treated by medics at the scene and pronounced dead at Jamaica Hospital.
Witnesses gave cops conflicting accounts of what happened, and there was no video surveillance of the platform.
MTA officials said the train crew is being questioned and they have been tested for drugs and alcohol.
The train was one of the MTA’s newest models — an R160, which has been in service since 2006.
A source said Leonard may have been intoxicated — although some co-workers noted he was on meds for back pain.
One of his grieving close friends, Judy Miller, said, “He was a really good — a really generous man.
“He would literally give somebody the shirt off of his back.”
Additional reporting by Priscilla DeGregory, Larry Celona and Jennifer Bain