Hero’S Thoughts Go To Others

Patrick Castro waited until he could no longer hear the gunmen before he began trying to free himself.

There was a hole in his right cheek.

His mouth was full of broken teeth and blood. His wrists and ankles were bound with duct tape. And a plastic bag covered his head.

The killers apparently hoped the bag would finish him off if the bullet they fired into his face didn’t, sources said Thursday. But Castro, 23, was determined not to die in the basement of the Wendy’s on Main Street.

He also knew he had to get his wounded pal, Jaquione (Fluff) Johnson, out of there.

For about an hour, Castro struggled, and when he finally freed himself and ripped the bag off his head, he saw a bloodbath. His boss and four co-workers were dead. But Johnson, 18, was still alive.

Castro staggered over to the manager’s office, where he used the fax machine phone to call for help at 12:53 a.m., according to police dispatch records.

“I’m in the basement locked in with other people,” Castro told the 911 operator, a source said. “They are in shock. … I’m locked in the basement, others are with me.”

Then he dragged Johnson, who was gurgling blood, to his feet, and the two struggled up the stairs to the restaurant just as police arriving at the scene smashed in a window to get past the locked doors.

“You better go downstairs,” Castro told the cops, sources said. “They need your help more than I do.”

Then he sank to his knees.

Castro was treated and released from New York Hospital Medical Center in Queens. Johnson was in critical condition there with a bullet lodged in the back of his head. He was breathing with the help of a respirator.

Doctors planned to perform brain surgery on Johnson Thursday night, said relatives, who took turns praying near him in the intensive-care unit.