Jeffrey Forde, Man Behind Subway Rat Face Crawl Video, Cashes In (VIDEO)

A rat crawling on a sleeping man's face was no doubt horrible for the poor, unsuspecting napper, but it was a very fortunate occurrence for the guy who filmed the shiver-inducing incident.

Jeffrey Forde, the man behind the camera that followed a terrified rat as it ran around a subway car, has sold his footage for nearly $4,000 to several media outlets.

The video, which has generated nearly half a million views on YouTube, has also inspired a T-shirt which caused Gothamist to wonder if, rats inside subway trains are "the key to NYC's economic recovery."

In his interview with WABC on Thursday night, Forde sympathized with the man whose harrowing experience helped put money in his bank account.

"That poor unfortunate guy, he just got a face full of rat," Forde said. "Some people catch it and tell the story later, then other people like me would catch it and actually show people later."

Though some are questioning whether the video was staged or not, claiming the rat was too clean, and too friendly, to be a normal subway rat.