28-year-old NYPD cops Eder Loor remains in critical condition after being stabbed in the head Tuesday by a schizophrenic Harlem man.
After a successful surgery, doctors at Mt. Sinai Hospital are cautiously optimistic that Loor will make a recovery.
“I was crying, I was panicking, I didn’t know what happened,” said Loor’s cousin Sasha Cardona, according to CBS news. “Honestly, I thought that it was going to be way worse. I thought he wasn’t going to survive, especially with taking him to surgery so fast. We were scared and it’s a miracle.”
Loor’s aunt Soraya Cardona said her nephew woke up hours after the stabbing and talked to his family. “Thank God, he’s fine,” she said. “He talked with everybody, all his family. He said my name, he touched me. Thank God he’s fine.”
Loor has a young daughter and he and his wife Nina are expecting a second child in July. He's been on the force for six years and is a Sergeant in the Air National Guard.
The incident occurred after Loor and his partner, Luckson Merisme, responded to a 911 call from a distraught mother who was having trouble controlling her mentally unstable 26-year-old son, The New York Post reports. She met Loor and Merisme outside the Franklin Plaza Housing Complex in East Harlem at about 10:45 AM, and gave a description of her son, Terrance Hale.
The cops caught up with Hale as he was leaving the building and tried to apprehend him and bring him to the hospital. Suddenly, however, hale plunged a three and a half inch blade it into Loor’s forehead above his left eye, police said.
Cops then chased after Hale, eventually arresting him and bringing him to Metropolitan Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Hale's mother says her son had stopped taking medicine for his condition a month ago.
He was charged with attempted aggravated murder, assault and weapons possession.
"Today is another reminder that in a split second a police officer's life can be placed in great jeopardy," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters Tuesday. "The low crime rate and quality of life that we experience here in New York doesn't come free."
"It comes at a price," he added, "as we learned too well today."