Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A Turkish-born graphic artist who moved to New York six years ago, she was paralyzed from the neck down after a man pushed her onto a moving subway train.
The victim, Emine Yilmaz Ozsoy, 35, suffered a cervical spine fracture, scalp laceration and other injuries after she the man “grabbed her head with both hands and pushed her with all his might towards the moving subway car”Assistant District Attorney Carolyn McGuigan revealed Wednesday.
The person responsible was identified as Kamal Semrade, 39, who was charged with attempted second-degree murder and other crimes for the assault at a subway station on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Sunday, according to a criminal complaint filed in New York Criminal Court and obtained by NBC New York.
“She was instantly paralyzed and remains in critical condition with a high risk of death or strokeMcGuigan said.
The attack at the Lexington Avenue and East 63rd Street station occurred at 6:05 a.m. and was captured on security camera and seen by witnesses.
Ozsoy, a former front page designer for an Istanbul newspaper, moved to New York City in 2017 and wanted to focus on her arther husband said in a written statement posted to the fundraiser.
She and Semrade were on the same train and got off in Manhattan. The man followed her, and then pushed her, onto the train that was leaving the station “quickly,” McGuigan said.
“I just see him walk next to her, to her left side, and with open palms he just pushes her head into the train as it moves,” witness Nancy Marrero told NBC New York.
Semrade fled the station, McGuigan said.
Court records show the New York Police Department took Semrade into custody Tuesday.
In the statement, Ozsoy’s husband, Ferdi Ozsoy, thanked the authorities and those who consoled his wife after the alleged attack. She said she had undergone difficult surgery at Weill Cornell Medical Center and that she was expecting a “long journey of recovery” that would likely hamper the career she had established as an award-winning artist, painter and illustrator.
“Her life after this is going to need constant care,” he said.
Semrade, who was taken into custody during Wednesday’s hearing, is due back in court on Friday.
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