The subway operator bloodied by a knife-wielding girl who broke into his cab final week whereas he was driving the prepare advised The Publish the expertise was so devastating he could give up the job totally.
“No one has our again. It’s like we signed as much as die,” stated Eric Shepard, 41, a third-generation prepare operator who has been driving subway trains for lower than two years.
“It’s like I’m alone. I actually don’t assume I'm going again.”
Shepard stated his attacker — allegedly 19-year-old Autumn Massaquoi of Yonkers, in response to police — started kicking on the door to his cab as he pulled the 2-train out of Wall Road station at round 8:15 p.m. on Friday.
She by some means managed to breach the door, after which he says she “lunged” at him, and he needed to defended himself with one hand whereas driving the prepare with the opposite.
“I used my proper hand with my left simply maintaining her off of me till I might safely cease that prepare,” he stated.
“I'm sitting beneath the East River and I've a knife pulled at me. If I get stabbed I'm dying there isn't any ambulance coming.”
The attacker then shoved Shepard into the again of the prepare, walked to the center of the automotive, brandished her weapon — which he in comparison with a Swiss Military Knife — and charged again at him, he recalled.
She by some means made it contained in the operator’s cab, so Shepard kicked her again into the passenger part.
He shut and locked his door and proceeded to the following station, Clark Road in Brooklyn Heights, the place he hoped to get police assist.
“As soon as I [pulled] as much as the station, I didn’t know she was hiding within the second automotive. I'm going outdoors the door to look down the platform and he or she runs again and assaults me once more,” he stated.
Shepard stated he’s liked trains since he was a child, however that the expertise gave him second ideas about his alternative of profession.
“This was all the time what I wished to do. I've all the time liked trains,” he stated. “That is disturbing. I haven’t slept. I’m devastated.”
The attacker fled the scene. Massaquoi was later arrested at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Park Slope, in response to police. She was launched with out bail.
“She was simply going loopy. One thing is improper. She was screaming ‘I hate life. I hate the world,'” he stated.
“I’m not mad at her. She wants assist I can’t give. My job is to maneuver the prepare,” he added. “She wants some psychological well being remedy or one thing worse goes to occur.”
MTA spokesman Tim Minton known as the incident “despicable.”
“Defending workers and prospects is why the MTA is hiring 500 cops, and the NYPD assigned greater than 1,000 officers to the subway system throughout in a single day closing hours,” Minton stated in an announcement.
“The perpetrator needs to be aggressively prosecuted for an abhorrent assault on a entrance line transit hero in the midst of a pandemic.”
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