An extremely rare triggering of the “dead man’s switch” on a G train yesterday saved passengers when the train motorman suffered a heart attack and died.
Domenick Occhiogrosso, 50, had pulled the train out of its Queens terminal at Court Square in Long Island City at around 8 a.m. when he collapsed.
With his hand no longer applying pressure on the controls, the switch was activated and the train was stopped as if someone had pulled the emergency brake, officials said.
No passengers were injured.
The train’s conductor went to the front cab to see why the train had stopped, and found Occhiogrosso. He was taken to Elmhurst Hospital and died at 9:20 a.m.
Occhiogrosso, from Brooklyn, was a 27-year veteran at NYC Transit who began as a subway car cleaner in 1983, and became a train operator in January 1986.