A bullied Brooklyn boy ran away from home and rode the rails all night before a straphanger and motorman helped reunite him with his family Tuesday.
Mark Huerta, 10, came home with his sister at about 3:40 p.m. Monday, but then took off from their Bushwick apartment.
“I wanted to go away for one or two days just to be alone,” Mark said. “People bully me at school. They make fun of me.”
He went to nearby Maria Hernandez Park, then rode subway trains all night – and was terrified.
“There are scary people on the train,” he said.
His family blanketed the neighborhood with fliers and began searching for him on the G line after a tipster spotted him there.
“We would stop the train and quickly check the cars,” said father Joel Huerta, 31. “I know that when these situations happen, sometimes that’s the last time the parents ever see their kids.”
A straphanger at Metropolitan Avenue told M-train motorman Luis Manrique that there was a kid on the train without his parents.
He began searching the cars, then saw the boy get out of a train and cross into another train.
He recognized Mark from a flier and took him to a subway dispatcher’s office to call the police.
“I was sad because I have two kids of my own,” said Manrique, an 18-year veteran of the MTA. “”I would hope that someone would have helped my kids if they needed it. This is my firs time finding a child.”
Transit cops took him to a local police station, and Mark was brought back home at 6:30 a.m.
“When I saw my family, they were so happy and relieved,” said Huerta. “I was happy to see them, and I missed them. I don’t want to do that again. It was a scary feeling.”
Huerta’s parents said they were grateful to the motorman, who visited them Tuesday.
“Thank you for keeping an eye out for my son,” father Joel said to Manrique. “I’m grateful because it doesn’t always end this way.”