An 18-year-old aspiring chef was struck in the head by an oncoming downtown express train at the Union Square subway station yesterday morning. Adrian Rodriguez, who suffered a serious head injury and is currently at Bellevue, was apparently on his way to Marta Valle High School, where a school staffer said, "He's never late, and I know he was just trying to get to school on time. He was always on time—100 percent." And according to one report, he may have been running in the station.

Officials told the Wall Street Journal that Rodriguez was "apparently running to catch a subway...when he tripped and fell headlong into the train, suffering a serious head injury... [H]e stumbled and crashed head first into the subway train just before 8 a.m. An MTA official said that the train was either slowing to a stop or had just come to a stop when the teen fell into it." However the Daily News suggests he collapsed in the station.

The Post also reports that he tripped: "The Bronx teen was rushing through the station... He lost his footing and stumbled in front of the train, horrifying scores of rush-hour straphangers."

Rodriguez is described as "a popular student with a real talent for cooking," according to the News, which adds, "He won the Careers through Culinary Arts Program junior competition last year and was prepping for a shot at a scholarship to the prestigious Culinary Institute of America."