DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, September 9th 2010, 4:00 AM
A down-on-his-luck construction worker survived a 625-volt zap to the head after getting pushed onto an electrified third rail during a drunken brawl in Brooklyn.
Witnesses said his body shook and smoke came from his noggin, as he lay helplessly on the subway tracks in East New York on Monday night.
Morris doesn't remember a thing. He just remembers waking up in a hospital the next day.
"When they electrocuted me, they erased my memory," he said. "When I hit the ground, I blacked out."
Police are reviewing video surveillance of the crime at the Broadway Junction station about 7:30 p.m. No one has been arrested.
A rolling argument began on the Queens-bound A train near the Jay St.-Borough Hall station. It spilled onto the platform about 10 stops later. Witnesses told cops that Morris was boozed up and belligerent and took a swing or two at a couple of other men.
The ruckus attracted a ring of onlookers, including one who stepped forward and shoved Morris without warning. A police source said the person who pushed Morris was not one of the two younger men he was arguing with.
"I want them to catch them," Morris said of the of the culprit who shoved him. "It was malicious."
The near-death toss was the just the latest bout of misfortune for Morris, who lives at Samaritan Village, a homeless shelter in East New York. He lost his construction job when the economy tanked and now fears he may never be able to work again.
"My fingers are fried," Morris said.
The push left witnesses rattled. They were certain Morris was a dead man.
"He first started twitching and then you started seeing smoke coming from his head," said Marlon Probherbs, 23. "You could smell the flesh burning."
A couple of good Samaritans climbed onto the tracks to help, but backed off out of fear of being electrocuted.
"I just heard a commotion," said Probherbs, of Brooklyn. "Then I saw him go flying off the platform and he went face-first onto the third rail.
The power was quickly shut off, and cops assigned to the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit pulled Morris from the tracks.
WPIX News televised photos of Morris - dressed in khaki shorts, a white T-shirt and black sneakers - sprawled on the tracks, his head touching the juiced-up third rail.
"I can't believe he made it," Probherbs said. "I thought he was dead."
Morris' survival was just the latest miracle on the tracks.
Last month, Francis Lusk, an eagle-eyed MTA motorman, stopped in the nick of time, sparing the life of a woman who had fallen onto the tracks at Fifth Ave. and 59th St.
From: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/09/09/2010-09-09_hit_3rd_rail__lived_survives_625volt_shock_after_maniac_shoves_him_onto_track.html
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