HERALD SQUARE, Manhattan (PIX11) — A Brooklyn commuter’s brush with a subway panhandler landed him in the Intensive Care Unit at a Manhattan hospital.
Iqbal Ahmed, 76, was stabbed and tumbled down the stairs at the Herald Square subway station on Sunday. The suspect, David Trotman, 38, was arraigned Wednesday in connection with the attack.
“Somebody asked me, ‘Give me money!’’’ Ahmed recalled from his hospital bed.
After that, he never made it home from work. Instead, he’s been in the hospital since Sunday night.
From his bed, hooked up to machines, Ahmed recalled falling down several steps and being covered in blood after someone solicited for spare change.
“I have severe pain,” Ahmed said, clutching his left side, “My lungs, they’re trying to take out the fluid.”
The pain is from a stab wound to the chest and a punctured lung he suffered from a panhandler, according to police. The wound was so severe he was moved to the ICU days after the incident on 34th Street.
“Last night, my blood pressure went down, so I was brought to the ICU.”
Prosecutors charged the suspect with felony assault. They allege that the Queens man flew into a rage after Ahmed ignored him and attacked with a knife.
Trotman was arrested a day later in Times Square after allegedly attacking another person.
“This is a bad thing, you know? New York business depends on tourism,” Ahmed said.
While the mayor pledged police are going after low-level crimes in the subway, the NYPD reported five summonses for aggressive panhandling in the first three months of the year.
“Then the tourists will see all this and be scared to come to New York,” Ahmed said.
The Pakistan native has lived in the Big Apple for nearly five decades. He has no family here, so friends have started a GoFundMe to help with his bills.
