It’s every New Yorker’s worst nightmare.
A Bronx nurse recalled the harrowing moment he was shoved into a subway by a deranged stranger — who came out of nowhere and left him unconscious and bleeding on the platform — and how no one lifted a finger to help.
Josue Romano, 47, was waiting for a southbound D-train at the Fordham Road station on June 27 when unhinged attacker lunged at him and hurled him face-first into the side of an incoming train, leaving him with a concussion, he told The Post.
“But did anybody help me out? Nobody helped me out,” Romano said Thursday. “No, not even the conductor. There were people inside the train, and nobody came out to ask what happened to me. Nothing. Nothing.”
His attacker remained on the loose. The NYPD this week released blurry surveillance footage showing the still-unidentified suspect pacing around the subway car wearing a white undershirt and dark-colored pants.
Romano said he was waiting for his train to head downtown around 2:20 p.m. when he noticed the assailant out of the corner of his eye and became alert.
“This man is acting kind of strange,” Romano said. “I believe he was on drugs or something, and then I see he goes into his duffel bag. I don’t know what he was looking for in the duffel bag. I said, ‘Ok, let me keep my distance because he’s kind of acting kind of funny.’
“But the man that was right behind me, so I said, ‘Ok, let me just walk away, because of things that are going on in New York, there’s a lot of crazy things going on in New York.’”
Despite the precaution, and Romano moving away from the edge, the nut rushed at him.
“I glanced to the right and I see something white coming towards me,” he recalled. “It was real fast because when I glanced, it was already coming to me so I didn’t have time to react, to like kind of get out the way, and that’s when it happened. I got hit.
“He pushed me in the back right in train that was coming in.”
Romano suffered injuries to his face and mouth, and collapsed onto the subway platform bloodied and unconscious, and was treated at St. Barnabas Hospital when help did arrive.
He said the incident has left him afraid to ride the rails — and skeptical of NYPD claims that the city transit system is safer than it’s been in months.
Major crime in the city’s subway system was down by about 1% in June, compared to last year, although felony assaults were up by 20 incidents in the month, according to NYPD stats.
“The statistics don’t mean anything,” Romano said. “I think what we see is what goes on and today is not the same as yesterday. The crime has grown more now than before.
“It’s just the crime is still growing and growing and growing no matter what the statistics say.”
The NYPD is asking anyone with information on the late June attack to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or, for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit tips by logging at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, on X @NYPDTips.
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