Astrophysics professor, 90, needed hip replacement after vile stranger shoves him off NYC subway
A 90-year-old astrophysicist professor was violently shoved off a New York City subway by a callous stranger — leaving him with broken bones and needing a hip replacement.
Dr. C.G. Wang is still recovering in the hospital weeks after he was hurled off a southbound F-train by a vile straphanger he politely asked to move so he could get off at the Lexington Avenue and East 53rd Street station.
“I said I need to exit … here. I just said it like that,” Wang told ABC 7 of the simple request.
“And he stepped aside. The door opened. I was pushed so hard I flew out of the train,” he recalled of the vicious attack that broke several of his bones.
“I landed on my hip first. Then my shoulder, next. Then my head, next. Boom, boom, boom.”
Wang, who had even been to a hospital before in his life, was taken by EMS to NYU Langone Tisch Hospital in stable condition, cops confirmed as they appealed for help finding the cruel pusher.
Wang was so badly injured he als needed a hip replacement, he said.
The suspect, who fled the scene in an unknown direction, appeared in a black jacket and a black baseball cap in a surveillance photo published by the NYPD on Wednesday, three weeks after the attack. He appeared to be roughly 40 to 50 years old and of medium build.
“Who does this?” the professor’s son, Juin Wang, asked.
“You know, who, who, who would shove a 90-year-old, frail, visually impaired man?”
Wang recalled the train being fairly empty when he asked the man to move around 1 p.m. on Oct. 6 so he could get off at the exact door he knew would open in front of the escalator after making the trip thousands of times before.
Despite his age, Wang was still living independently and had been regularly commuting to an office to conduct research and write before the attack.
Juin Wang said the family’s primary focus is on his father’s recovery but they want “to be sure this doesn’t happen to anybody else.”
