Sitting in the ticket booth at Dufferin Station last Friday, Russell Cormier was idly chatting with his partner when he heard a rumbling screech from the tunnel below.

"It was this loud screeching sound, steel on steel, as the brakes went. Then all of a sudden we heard screaming. People started running upstairs. They were yelling, `Kids! He pushed the kids!'"

By this time, Cormier was out of the booth trying to make sense of what was happening. That's when he saw a middle-aged man bounding up the escalator from the eastbound platform. He looked vacant.

"Someone yelled, `That's him! That's him!'" Cormier lunged at him as the suspect dashed for the exit turnstiles.

By this time, Cormier's partner, Joe De Gabrielis, had jumped into the fray. The suspect wrestled away from Cormier, then swung at De Gabrielis. He bounded outside and began sprinting down the street, with Cormier at his heels.

"I just needed another six inches of arm's length. I was right behind him, but couldn't quite get hold," he said. At this point, Cormier began questioning whether he should even be chasing him at all. Cormier, 47, is a large man, and suffered a heart attack a year and a half before.

"But I just thought of those kids and my own kids and I couldn't let this guy get away," he said.

Just as the suspect was about to slip inside a restaurant, Cormier pounced on him, sending the man to the concrete below. "I told him to stay down or he's going to get hurt."

And he did. Cormier, who many have hailed as a hero, recounted the harrowing tale yesterday afternoon outside Sick Kids hospital.

Cormier, along with his wife and daughter, had just been to visit one of the victims from the attack, Jacob Greenspon. The 15-year-old was one of two teens pushed from the Dufferin subway platform by a stranger during rush hour Friday.

The attack was unprovoked. The teens survived because of the quick thinking of Greenspon's friend, who rolled to the crawl space as the train was approaching, pulling Greenspon along with him.

Greenspon miraculously survived, but the train crushed his foot. He is due back in surgery today and is doing well, said Cormier.

The hospital room was crowded with Greenspon's classmates and friends. Everyone seemed in good spirits, said Cormier.

It's been a difficult year for Cormier. Almost a year ago, a woman threw herself under the streetcar he was driving. Then last month, he was attacked by a man at the Dufferin station after asking for a fare. The man threw the Metropass in his face, then assaulted him.

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"The TTC is very safe, but stuff like this happens with the collectors all the time," he said. "Ideally, there'd be two constables at every station."

Adenir DeOliveira, charged in Friday's incident, is to appear in Old City Hall court this morning.