A Queens man who was stabbed on a New York City subway train over his iPhone lashed out at fellow passengers, saying “nobody helped me.”
Efrain Guaman, 33, told the New York Post: “I asked for help. They all ran because they were scared.” He was stabbed in the stomach by the assailant, who took his phone before exiting the train at the Atlantic Avenue stop in Brooklyn.
Guaman, a single father who works at an electronic store, pulled the emergency lever on the subway car to stop it. He said no one on the train helped him after the Friday incident.
“It took 30 minutes for emergency to come,” he said. “I couldn’t think of anything. I just felt the pain.”
Police said the suspect is an 18-year-old male with a neck tattoo.
“It happened so fast, I didn’t realize what he was trying to do,” Guaman said, and added that the attacker told him: “Give me your phone or I’ll stab you!” The suspect then stabbed him.
According to ABC, he was taken to New York Methodist Hospital, where he is now recovering.
His family said that Guaman was more shaken by the fact that no one came to his aid when he needed it most, rather than being stabbed.
“It’s that no one came to help him as he was fighting to stay alive is what really has him shaken,” his uncle, Lorenzo Guaman, told ABC. “He says there was a lot of people around him. He says he was bleeding all from the stomach, and nobody cares about that.”
Cops said the suspect is about 5’5″ with a thin build and may have hair either in braids or a twist.
“People will do anything for an iPhone now,” Leslie Guaman said. “You hear things, but you don’t think they’d happen … You’re in such a vulnerable place.”
