Transit workers gathered Wednesday to commemorate a co-worker killed by a G train in a Brooklyn subway tunnel back in November. NY1's Jose Martinez spoke with a co-worker who survived the impact of being crushed by a train. He filed the following report.

Jeffrey Fleming says he will never forget the night of November 3.

"That changed my life forever," he said.

That night, his fellow track worker, Louis Gray, was fatally pinned against the wall of a Brooklyn subway tunnel by an oncoming G train.

"Someone told me to look to my right. And I see him running, and I started running," Fleming said. "The train just came out of nowhere. That was it."

On Wednesday night, transit workers and Gray's loved ones held a memorial for the 53-year-old father of three, who became the third track worker killed in the last decade.

"We put our lives on the line every night to walk on those tracks," Fleming said. "You don't know what's going to happen. Expect the unexpected. And that night was the unexpected."

Gray was killed as he and Fleming set up lights in a curving section of tunnel between the Fort Hamilton Parkway and Church Avenue stations. They had been putting up the lights to alert train operators that workers would be in the tunnel. 

"Yes, we should have been better protected," Fleming said. "There has to be a change." 

All of Fleming's ribs were shattered. He is not yet letting himself think about going back on the tracks.

"No time soon. No time soon," he said.

The vigil came as the Transport Workers Union angles to get pay raises for thousands of transit workers. The union's contract with the MTA expires on Sunday, and during its public push for a new deal, the union has repeatedly emphasized the need for more worker protections.

"We deserve to be well-paid, well-compensated for the work that we do and the hazards that we face," said John Samuelsen, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100.

For Gray, one of those hazards cost him his life. The NTSB continues to investigate what went wrong.

"At the end of the day, we just have to work harder to make sure this never happens again," said Javier McKenzie, an MTA construction flagger.