Exclusive | New Yorker nearly killed in infamous shopping cart attack returns to city she loves
She beat a real-life horror story — so Halloween in Gotham doesn’t scare her one bit.The Upper West Side philanthropist who famously survived being struck on the head by a shopping cart hurled by two young thugs from four stories high is returning home 15 years after the random attack shocked NYC.Marion Hedges made a last-minute trip on Oct.30, 2011, to an East Harlem mall to buy candy for the underprivileged kids invited to her annual Halloween block party.
The candy run ended in a nightmare when a pair of heartless teens hurled a heavy Target shopping cart from a walkway 79 feet above.her.The married mom of two suffered permanent brain damage, two broken ribs and a broken collarbone.
Rescuers revived Hedges with CPR after she lost her pulse.She spent the next four days in a medically induced coma at Harlem Hospital — followed by three years of cognitive therapy.Now, after bolting first to Connecticut and then the Hamptons, the 62-year-old is moving back to her old neighborhood.
She plans to devote herself once again to improving the lives of at-risk youngsters like the ones who nearly took her life.“I’m very aware of my limitations — but I don’t believe in the word ‘victim,'” Hedges, who has severe double vision, defiantly told The Post.“I refuse to be afraid of home.I have a cane and believe me, I’m ready to use it if I have to.”Hedges even plans to volunteer this Halloween — at a community center kids’ party in the South Bronx .“Halloween is a fun time – it’s not a time to stay home and hide.
I try not to look at it with sadness,” said the former real estate broker who can no longer drive, shed a tear or even read a book due to her compromised vision and attention span.“I don’t think about what I don’t have – I try not to live a nightmare,” she said.
The two boys who hurled the cart – Raymond Hernandez, then 12, and Jeovanni Rosario, then 13 – pleaded guilty to assault and got slaps on the wrist.Hernandez c...