Sarah Arias, 18, recounts horrifying moments when she was shoved onto elevated subway tracks in Queens
NEW YORK -- It was a terrifying ordeal for a teenage girl who was pushed onto an elevated subway track in Woodhaven, Queens, hours before her prom.
CBS2 spoke to her on Tuesday about the assault police say was random.
Sarah Arias described the moment she says a woman shoved her onto the train tracks at the 75th Street/Elderts Lane platform on Monday at 10:30 a.m.
"It didn't feel real. I just remember I fell. I was on the floor. I saw the train coming approaching the platform," Arias said.
She said she fell onto her hands and knees and showed CBS2 her scrapes and bruises. She said adrenaline kicked in and she was able to hoist herself up onto the platform as witnesses checked to see if she was okay.
"There were two people around me, and they were just in shock," Arias said.
Where she was shoved is an elevated subway track. Arias said if she was pushed any harder she could have fallen right through the tracks to the ground below.
"If I would have fell in a different spot I would have been in the street," Arias said.
"The fact that she's here today, I'm so grateful," mother Jeanette Jimenez added.
Her mother rushed to the train station and got there moments after police, but the suspect, 26-year-old Shakeema Wise, had already gotten away.
However, investigators caught up with Wise, who lives in a shelter, and she was taken into custody.
"She should be get a mental help. If she's not capable of being in society, she should be put away," Jimenez said.
The assault happened as Arias was heading home from school early to get ready for her prom that night.
Despite being shaken up, she still made it. When she graduates, he plans to study law enforcement and hopes to one day become a detective.
"John Jay Criminal Justice ... make things right," she said.
Arias now has a new perspective and first-hand experience with crime in the city, and says for now on she'll avoid taking the train.
The charges against the suspect are still pending.
