A pair of fearless emergency-medical technicians tackled and subdued a heavily armed, 250-pound gunman who was allegedly trying to rob two straphangers with a sawed-off shotgun at a Brooklyn subway station early yesterday.
Brave EMT workers Michael Skody and Jason Rosado “went above and beyond their jobs – I definitely call them heroes,” their supervisor, Lt. William Moore, of the 57th Battalion, told The Post.
Police sources and witnesses said the attack occurred at the L train station at Myrtle and Wyckoff avenues at 1:30 a.m. as Cornelius Cotrell, 34, pointed a sawed-off shotgun at Javier Torres Jr., 21, and attempted to rob him and a friend, both Army reservists.
The three began to scuffle as Torres and his friend desperately tried to wrest control of the weapon from Cotrell, sources said.
That’s when Skody, 49, and Rosado, 23, who were responding to the report of a nosebleed at the station at the time, saw what was going on and raced into action.
“They were having a tough time handling the assailant,” Skody said of the victims. “I put my foot on top of the guy, and we placed a call for additional help. As long as we had him on the floor, I was confident nothing was going to happen.”
Meanwhile, Rosado wrenched the suspect’s hand behind his back and held on tight, securing the gun and some ammunition they found strapped to his leg.
“While we were doing this, he was yelling, ‘They planted the gun on me! What’s going on? What’s going on?’ But then police arrived and frisked him, and found some other ammunition,” Skody said.
“They said to him, ‘We suppose they planted this, too!’ ”
Skody is no stranger to helping out people in big trouble.
Last summer, he raced to the rescue of a young woman who was being assaulted and saved her from being raped.
Another time, he followed an Alzheimer’s patient who was wandering around and took her to the hospital.
But dealing with a suspect wielding a sawed-off shotgun is extremely dangerous – and Skody knows it.
“From close range, the weapon can inflict severe damage,” he told The Post. “One shot is enough to blow a hole in you. It could actually take [part of] your head off.”
Cotrell, 34, of 157 Nassau Ave. in Brooklyn, has been charged with weapons possession. An investigation is continuing, cops said.