(The following story by Nicole Bode and Tracy Connor appeared on the Daily News website on March 2.)
NEW YORK — He’s 22 months old, stands less than 3 feet tall and is still in diapers – yet somehow he managed to ride a No. 7 express all on his own.
Stuart Tito took the journey of his young life when he got away from his mom on a Queens subway platform and jumped through the doors of a train just as they closed.
Before his mother and father could react, the train was pulling away toward Manhattan – with Stuart on the inside and his frantic parents left behind.
“It was about 15 minutes – but it felt like forever,” mom Blanca Amarilis, 33, told the Daily News of her son’s solo ride on the rails.
It was an adventure that could have ended horribly. But fortunately for little Stuart, a mystery woman rescued and reunited him with his family.
“That woman was my angel for finding my son,” Amarilis said. “I would like to know who she is so I can thank her.”
Stuart is quite a handful – constantly curious, perpetually in motion and absolutely fearless. Trains are his passion; he points whenever one roars above his Queens neighborhood.
That’s why Amarilis held his hand tightly as she and husband Victor Tito, 32, waited at Junction Blvd. on their way to a doctor’s appointment for their 9-month-old, Derrick.
As an express pulled into the station, Amarilis noticed Derrick’s nose was running, and she leaned down over the stroller to wipe it – letting go of Stuart.
In that instant, the little imp scooted away as fast as his sneaker-clad feet would take him, darted through the closing doors of the train and was whisked away.
“I looked down [and] he wasn’t there,” Amarilis recalled. “I said, ‘Stuart!’ and a man told me he went on the train. It was so fast. I was so upset.”
Her husband dashed downstairs for a taxi, dialing 911 on his cell phone. Police operators told him to stay where he was.
Meanwhile, Amarilis and Derrick got on the next train that came in. She found cops to help her but feared the worst.
“I thought that someone would take him,” she said. “I prayed to God to protect my son and let me find him again.”
She didn’t know it, but her prayer was being answered. A woman who saw Stuart board the train, scooped him up, got off at 61st St. and took a train back to Junction Blvd.
When they arrived, she spotted the boy’s father looking frantic and asked, “Is this your son?”
“Yes!” the Ecuadoran-born cook answered, wrapping his errant explorer in a hug. The woman melted into the crowd.
The elder Tito got on his cell phone. “Come, I found the baby,” he joyously told his wife, who rushed back.
At her Corona home, as Amarilis chased Stuart around, she marveled at how lucky it was the woman – and not some shady character – found her child.
“She had such a good heart to bring my baby back,” she said. “There are a lot of people that would not have done that. And my son could still be lost.”
She said she will be much more cautious in the future. But it looks like Stuart hasn’t learned his lesson.
As the family returned yesterday afternoon to the platform where he had disappeared, a 7 train roared in and the tot, true to form, tried to make a run for it. This time, though, he didn’t get far.
(With Alison Gendar)