A man hurled onto the tracks at a Manhattan subway station told the Daily News Wednesday he was attacked by a panhandler he refused to give money.
Manuel Hernandez, 35, was on his way to work when he was confronted at his local station, the Dyckman St. stop in Inwood, about 3:40 p.m. Saturday.
“I was waiting for the train,” Hernandez, who speaks Spanish, told The News through a translator. “This man was asking me for money. When I refused to give him any money, he pushed me.”
Hernandez broke his left wrist and struck his face in the fall onto the railbed but managed to scramble back onto the platform before the next downtown A train arrived.
“The train was a few minutes away, so it gave me just enough time to get back on the platform,” he said.
Medics took him to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia in stable condition.
Police originally said the victim intervened on behalf of a woman who was being harassed by his attacker but Hernandez said he only saw the man speaking to a woman prior to his own clash with the panhandler.
The NYPD on Tuesday released images of the suspect and are asking the public’s help identifying him and tracking him down. He was wearing a black T-shirt and blue pants.
“Right now, I am scared to catch the subway,” Hernandez said. “Maybe if the police catch him, I will be less scared.”
The incident came less than a week after two men, including an 83-year-old Air Force veteran, were pushed onto the tracks at the Lexington Ave.-63rd St. station station in a random attack on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The vet, Richard Williams, remains in the hospital in critical condition fighting for his life after the March 8 attack.
Bairon Hernandez, 34, was arrested hours later and charged with two counts of first-degree assault. The Honduran native — who entered the country illegally and has been deported four times — was arrested at a Brooklyn homeless shelter.
Anyone with information on Saturday’s attack is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
