As Heather Burke bled profusely after getting stabbed in the abdomen and arm on the subway by a disturbed straphanger, the frightened victim feared the worst.
“I’ve never seen so much blood,” Burke, 39, told the New York Daily News. “I thought I was going to die.”
A steak-knife wielding stabber attacked Burke on Monday morning on the No. 6 train heading to Midtown Manhattan and also punched another passenger as others tried to intervene, CBS reported. But when Charles Williams, a New York City street cleaner, saw streams of frantic passengers filing out of the station, he instantly knew something was wrong and that he had to get involved.
“Everybody was going out,” Williams told the Daily News. “Nobody was going in. I’m tired of senseless killings. I ran down.”
Williams, along with another good Samaritan, raced to the station, got a hold of the attacker and held her down until cops arrived.
“I just went off pulse to help,” Williams told CBS. “I didn’t think at the time what could happen, I just wanted to save some lives. I just thought it could have been anyone in my family, anybody else’s family in New York City.”
Burke underwent surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell following the incident and was released on Wednesday, according to her Facebook page.
"Home safe and sound! Still have a great deal of healing to do both physically and emotionally but getting out of the hospital is a good first step,” Burke wrote on her Facebook wall on Wednesday. “Everyone's support has meant the world to me and the prayers positive thoughts and well wishes have given me strength.”
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