NEW YORK Authorities say a 5-year-old boy slipped onto a New York City subway alone and rode for 34 stops from one end of Manhattan to the other before anyone intercepted him.

Samuel Sosa has been reunited with his mother, unharmed, after his hourlong transit odyssey Monday.

Griselda Sosa says her son got away from her around 7:40 a.m. while she got coffee near an elevated station on the No. 1 line in the northernmost part of Manhattan. The boy apparently sprinted up the station's stairs, squeezed under a turnstile and boarded a southbound train before she could stop him.

Police quickly put out an alert, but Sammy made it to the end of the line before transit workers spotted him around 8:40 a.m.

His mother calls authorities' response "good and fast