He survived thanks to the fast actions of strangers on the platform.
The 27-year-old man shoved onto the Manhattan subway tracks after a tense stare-down with another rider is a US Army soldier who was on leave and trying to get to his father’s funeral.
Aaron Kareem Watson told The Post he was traveling Friday morning to the service for his father, Alfred Kenneth Watson, who died in a Brooklyn fire last month, when an argument broke out on the E train over which passenger had stared at the other first.
Authorities said the suspect followed Watson off the southbound train when it arrived at the West Fourth Street Station in Greenwich Village, then shoved him from the platform onto the tracks after the train had departed.
Bystanders quickly pulled Watson back to safety before another train could arrive. He suffered minor bruises and scratches and was taken to Bellevue Hospital.
But the frightening encounter kept him from attending the funeral for his father, who died July 23 in a blaze in East New York, Brooklyn, and would have turned 63 on Saturday.
“It’s a very hard thing to deal with — especially because I wasn’t expecting him to pass away, especially in the way that he did,” said Watson, who joined the Army two months ago and had been in basic training in Georgia before receiving temporary leave for the memorial service.
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“And I was struggling a bit during my time in the military, so I imagine missing [the funeral] didn’t help either.”
Watson said he believed the suspect — described as a stocky man about 5-foot-7, dressed all in black with black and white sneakers and carrying a black bag – is homeless. He’s still on the run and no arrest has been made as the case remains under investigation, police said.
“I wasn’t really in the best mood, but, during the train ride, I saw someone staring at me and staring at me very hard for a while,” said Watson.
“I got agitated over it, and while I was coming out of the train — when I got out of West Fourth — I pretty much said, ‘I don’t know why you’re staring at me so hard, guy?’
“He came out of the train while I was getting off, and followed me up the stairs, and he was just shouting at me all the time, being very aggressive and instigating a fight with me.”
Watson visited his aunt, Sylvia Watson, at her home in East New York on Saturday.
She teared up while discussing her family’s recent misfortune.
“I am devastated, because what else could go wrong?” she said. “Because I knew he took his father’s death too hard. He didn’t get a chance to see his dad. It’s rough.
“He was traveling here, so that he can view his father before they do the cremation, before they put him inside the crematorium. So he was unable to view his father because of this situation.”
