"This hero helped a lovely woman,
As she was repeatedly stabbed,
From our neighborhood,
A block over ..."
~ Twittering LSTOO & Folly IAG
~ * ~
Hero who helped save psychologist from slasher now needs help
By CHRISTINA BOYLE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, November 19th 2007
Hero Amarjit Singh - who helped save psychologist from Second Ave.
slasher - now needs help.
Singh, shown at Bellevue Hospital, hasn't worked since 2nd Ave.
slasher nearly took off his ear.
He put his life on the line to save a fellow New Yorker - and now
Manhattan cook Amarjit Singh needs help.
Six weeks ago, Singh bravely raced back toward the madman who had just
stabbed him to prevent the sicko from killing psychologist Susan
Barron.
He never thought how it would alter his life.
He now has no job and doesn't feel safe in his own home.
"Now it's a very different life," Singh said. "Before, I worked and I
was happy. Now I stay at home all the time, thinking."
"I'm going crazy. I've no money, no nothing."
"I want anybody to help me."
Singh, 56, was the first victim when police say 38-year-old Lee
Coleman went on a bloody rampage along Second Ave. on Oct. 6.
Singh was preparing food at the Texas Smokehouse restaurant when
Coleman entered and stole several knives before slashing the cook
across the face and chasing him into the street.
Seconds later, Coleman - who relatives say is schizophrenic and
bipolar and had not been taking his medication - turned the blades on
Barron, 67, who was walking to church with her dog.
With blood gushing down his face, Singh made a split-second decision
to rush back and confront Coleman as he plunged the knives into
Barron's head, neck and body.
Off-duty transit cop Gregory Chin then shot and wounded Coleman after
he refused to drop the knives.
"I saw her in hospital," Singh said of Barron. "She said, 'Thank you
very much; you saved my life.'"
"I help that woman, and if something happen in the street [again], I
help all the people."
Singh is too scared to return to his rental apartment, just blocks
from where he was attacked, so he now sleeps on the sofa in a friend's
living room in Queens.
He can't walk more than half a block without having to rest, he has
lost feeling in the left side of his face and can no longer hear out
of his left ear, which was nearly cut off.
He suffers flashbacks and nightmares from the attack, and although the
New York State Crime Victims Board is paying his medical bills, the
boss he spent 22 years working for has visited him just twice since
the attack, Singh said.
The restaurant has remained closed, and Singh says he was never
offered any compensation. He has not even been told whether he will
get his job back if the business reopens.
"I lose everything," he said. "All day I'm at home; this is like jail
because I don't want to stay at home all the time."
"My boss always say I was like family," he added.
"It's difficult. I'm 56 and in my life, I never go to hospital, I
never took one tablet. Now I have to take many."
Singh is applying for workers' compensation but has no idea how he
will live on the small handout.
He used to make $700 a week and sent about $1,500 a month to his four
children in India. Now they rely on relatives.
"A lot of relatives are helping [my children], but how long they help?
Not a long time," he said. "Now I'm living for free, but I cannot stay
here always."
"People always say 'hero' but what is a hero? It means nothing."
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