Man beaten with his own baseball bat in random subway attack in NYC, police say
NEW YORK — A man says he was beaten with his own baseball bat on a subway in SoHo early Monday morning.
The victim told CBS News New York's Alecia Reid the attack came out of nowhere, and police are still looking for the suspect.
"My jacket was covered in blood"
Jarrett Adorno, 25, says a fun night out in the city with his friends turned to horror on the 4 train as he was heading home around 1:30 a.m. Monday.
When the train stopped at Spring Street, another man got on, and Adorno says by the time the doors closed, the man had grabbed a plastic baseball bat from Adorno's backpack and started hitting him in the face.
"He just started going for it ... I'm just over here blocking, doing the best I can and covering my hands, my face," he said.
Although the suspect demanded his belongings, Adorno says he managed to get away once the train doors opened at the Bleecker Street station.
"I had blood just stained all over here on the side of my face. My jacket was covered in blood," he said.
He ran out of the station and made it a few blocks to Prince and Greene streets, where a patrol car happened to be stationed.
Victim suffered broken nose, needed dozens of stitches after subway attack
Adorno was transported to a nearby hospital. He was left with bruising and swelling about the head, a broken nose and dozens of stitches throughout his face.
"Four different sets of dissolvable stitches ... Eight here, nine there, I have another 10 right here," Adorno said.
With everything that happened, Adorno says he's happy to be alive.
"I didn't sustain any hemorrhaging in the brain, so I'm just happy about that. I just feel like I had an angel on my side," he said.
Now that Adorno can finally open his right eye, he says the internal swelling has gone down. Doctors anticipate he will make a full recovery.
So far, no arrests have been made.
Despite this brazen attack, NYPD data shows transit crime is down 6% from this time last year.