Shopping cart prank victim speaks out

NEW YORK (WABC) -- The Manhattan woman nearly killed by a falling shopping cart in East Harlem is speaking out.

She was seriously injured when 2 teenagers threw the cart over a fourth floor railing at a parking garage.

"I wish them well, I do. I feel very sorry for them. My son is 13 also, and he is a very good boy," Marion Hedges said.

True to the spirit of her life, 47-year-old philanthropist Hedges told us that she has no animosity toward the two boys who almost killed her. You can see them in surveillance video obtained by the New York Post, pushing a red cart over the railing of a parking garage in East Harlem. They hoist it up, but it gets stuck. One more heave and the cart hurtles 50 feet down, crashing directly into the wife and mother who, along with her 13-year-old son, was buying Halloween candy for underprivileged children. He saw everything -his mother crumbling to the ground. That's what she told us she worries about.

"The video shows my son being so brave, but I don't want him to hear the screaming and the trauma," she said.

Hedges suffered a massive head injury and spent months in a coma. She lost sight in one eye and continues to need daily rehabilitation. Besides crediting her son for his bravery, standing by her, she also gives thanks to the teenager in the white sweatshirt, who can be seen on the surveillance video trying to stop his two pals from carrying out their twisted prank.

"I don't think my son or his friends would do anything like that. These boys obviously have some issues. A shopping mall is no place for kids, but they had nowhere to go on that day," she said.

Hedges father-in-law is not nearly as charitable.

"What have these two young thugs learned? That you can get away with something like this with very little punishment," Michael Hedges, Sr. said.

---
Get Eyewitness News Delivered

Facebook | Twitter | Newsletters | Text Alerts

Get more New York News »

new york city, harlem, crime, marion hedges, new york news, sarah wallace

• Comment Now
• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•