See It: Dog Lost In Subway Reunites With MTA Rescuer

New York City NY

11 May, 2021

3:11 PM

Description

NEW YORK CITY — Lucy had a real dog of a day Saturday. The support dog ran away from her caretaker in Battery Park, sprinted across the West Side Highway and fare jumped into the subway. She spent hours ducking trains in tunnels from Chambers Street to 28th Street. Her subway misadventures lit up MTA radios and the Citizen app until transit worker Jose Bonilla finally caught up with her. Bonilla's thanks? "I petted her, I picked her up — there was a bite involved at that moment," Bonilla said Tuesday. But Bonilla didn't appear to hold a grudge — he appeared with Lucy at a ceremony Tuesday commending the rescue and presenting him with a certificate. Molly, who was taking care of Lucy for her mother, thanked Bonilla. She said rescue capped a stressful day that began when Lucy bolted away "Down from the eighth floor, through the lobby, past the doorman, across the West Side Highway, into the train station and then up and down the trains all day long," Molly said. "And I spent time from station to station screaming her name like a crazy person and to no avail until Jose managed to find her and get her back into my hands." Sarah Meyer, MTA's chief customer officer, recounted Lucy's route. She said Lucy went up and down the 1 line from Chambers Street before going north to 14th Street, where she ducked under trains along the platform edge. "She was spotted running along the tunnels that served the 1 line at 14th Street and made it another 14 blocks all the way to 28th Street," Meyer said. "And that's where she was found by a heroic [Train Service Supervisor] Jose, a whole 10 hours after she was reported missing." Lucy escaped all harm except for a broken nail, Molly said. She collected the runaway pooch at 34th Street. "Then she sat very nicely on the subway for the whole ride home as though she had never done anything else," she said.