The hero MTA worker who was killed while trying to get off a train with a dozen straphangers after smoke and flames erupted on a No. 2 train was a dedicated family man who leaves behind two young children, including a five-month-old son.
Now his devastated family is trying to figure out how to hold a funeral amid the city’s coronavirus crisis, which has put a stop to public gatherings.
Train operator Garrett Goble, 36, was the “nucleus of the family,” his mother Vicky told The Post.
Goble’s wife, Delilah, had spoken to him just two hours before the 3:15 a.m. fire, which broke out Friday.
Goble was found unconscious on the tracks at the 110th Street-Central Park North subway station by first responders, after trying to get off the smoke-filled train, authorities said.
“That is the person he was. He helps everyone. He would give the shirt off his back to anyone,” Delilah Goble, 32, said.
The brave father of infant Hunter, and 10-year-old Noah, was a six-year MTA employee among the essential city workers who reported for duty during the coronavirus pandemic. Goble had just started a stand-by shift when the fire erupted.
EMS rushed him to Mount Sinai but he could not be saved.
“I’m just numb. Actually, it feels like a dream. I feel like he’s going to come through the door. I don’t think I’ll ever accept this,” Delilah said. “I’ll just learn to live with it. I don’t know how I’m supposed to go on without him.”
“He would not leave the house without kissing us and saying ‘I love you’ because ‘I don’t know…..you never know,’ he would say,” she recalled. “He was my rock.”
Goble’s death has left Noah stunned, Delilah said.
“It comes in waves. Sometimes he just sits, looking out the window crying, ‘I want to see my dad,’” she added.
There have been no arrests.
“It’s senseless. Whoever did this destroyed the family, took a father, a husband and a son. He has a five-month-old child who will never know his father,” Delilah said. “I want to see that person caught. I want justice for my husband.”
Goble’s mother, Vicky Goble, was baffled.
“The whole thing doesn’t make sense. Set a fire! For what reason? A good man was taken from this Earth and the rest of us just have to continue on as best we can,” she told The Post. “I’m too shell-shocked to be angry.”
“We are looking at funeral homes and what we are allowed [to do]. If we can’t do what we want to do, once this is over, we will have a memorial for him,” she said.
“I lost my only child… He was my baby,” his mom said through tears. “His life was cut short. He was only 36 years old.”