Losing your wallet or cellphone can be frustrating. But losing $9,000 in cash? Terrifying.

That's what happened to one Long Island Rail Road rider, until conductor Jerry Savino saved the day.

MTA and union officials honored the 18 year LIRR veteran with a ceremony at Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn.

“It's nice to be recognized, but, again, this is what we do really every single day. All my cohorts, all my coworkers, they would do the same thing without fail,” said Savino.

"It's a tremendous opportunity for me to say thank you to our train crew for the professionalism for the dedication and for the concern they display for our customers, day in and day out," said Phillip Eng, president of the LIRR.

The $9,000 was stuffed in an envelope inside a file-folder style briefcase that was found on 6:20 from Hempstead to Atlantic Terminal last Thursday evening. The MTA believes it had been left on the train's previous run from Atlantic Terminal to Hempstead.

A rider had alerted Savino that it appeared to be unattended.

The conductor found it and the crew brought it to the MTA Police office in Jamaica station.

The owner was contacted through papers also found in the briefcase. He retrieved the cash a short time later. The MTA declined to identify him.

Honoring an LIRR crew was a rare public display of harmony between MTA management and workers after months of acrimonious debate over allegations of inflated overtime and abuse.

The MTA says 16,000 items are brought to the LIRR's lost and found every year, about half are returned to their owners.

This is not the first time a large amount of money has been lost and found. We found riders who say they had cash returned, too.

"I lost my wallet and it had, like, $1,000 in it, but there is some nice New Yorkers that did return it back with the cash," said one straphanger.