Brookline man honored for heroism

On a misty morning last June, 62-year-old Lawrence Spiegel darted across trolley tracks and a rain-soaked platform at Longwood to catch an inbound trolley screeching into the station.

Suddenly, he slipped and found himself sprawled across the tracks, the trolley bearing down on him. He would have been killed; he is certain of that. But in an instant, a man dashed to the tracks and heaved him out of the way.

"It was miraculous intervention," Spiegel said yesterday. "He was like a messenger from God."

The messenger was Johnathan Burbea, 33, of Brookline, who was presented the prestigious Carnegie Medal for Heroism yesterday for saving Spiegel's life.

Burbea recalled yesterday that he had been standing on the platform and that Spiegel caught his attention as soon as he tried to cross the tracks.

"I knew he was in trouble," Burbea said. "Those trolleys come from around a corner, and they're not that loud. Then they rush by you before you know it."

As people on the platform screamed, Burbea ran to Spiegel and grabbed him by an arm and a leg. Unable to move him, he seized Spiegel by the ankles and dragged him off the tracks just as the train rushed past, swiping Burbea and injuring his leg. Spiegel sustained a cut to his head.

"I was one of the people nearest to him when he fell, and it seemed like everyone else was just stunned when they saw him lying on the tracks with this train heading toward him," Burbea said.

The Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Hero Fund Commission announced 19 recipients of the award yesterday. Each will be given a bronze medal and a $5,000 check, said Doug Chambers, the Carnegie Hero Fund's director of external affairs. About 900 applications are received each year, and about 100 awards are made.

"Every rescue is unique," Chambers said.

The awards are given to people who risk their own life in an extra ordinary attempt to save another person's life.

Burbea said the impact from the trolley tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He is scheduled to have surgery in about two months.

"A minute after it happened, I started thinking about what I had done and what I almost put my family through," Burbea said. "We could have both died or been crippled for life."