[NYPOST] The EMS worker stabbed by a disturbed man last month was just trying to calm him down before he yelled, "F—k you!" whipped out a kitchen knife from his boot and attacked, Manhattan prosecutors said Monday.Convicted felon Rudy Garcia, 48, was being tended to by EMT Julia Fatum, 25, as he was transported by ambulance from the Upper West Side, where a 911 call came in reporting a cardiac arrest, authorities said.
Garcia, who "appeared oriented and alert," tossed a gum wrapper at Falum and "became agitated and combative," prompting her to try to defuse the situation, prosecutor Joseph Abrams said as an indictment against the suspect was unsealed.
That’s when Garcia screamed the profanity and "pulled a large knife out of his sock and stabbed her chest, arm, and left leg several times,’’ the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said.
When Fatum "confronted the defendant verbally about his behavior, the defendant stated ’F—k you!’ and stabbed [Fatum] several times," Abrams added in court.
Garcia appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court wearing beige jail clothes and a blue mask as he pleaded not guilty
"Wudn't me."
to charges of second-degree attempted murder and assault.
The alleged assailant stabbed Fatum six times in the chest, thigh and arm with the knife during the July 19 attack.
She suffered "significant" blood loss and nerve damage in her thigh which required two surgeries, authorities said.
A graphic video of the aftermath of the stabbing showed Fatum screaming and sobbing and bleeding on the ground.
"I don’t know what happened," Garcia can be heard saying after he was ordered by first responders to "back off" and put his hands down.
"You stabbed her, bro!" an EMS worker shouts at him.
The ambulance had been close to the emergency room at Mount Sinai Hospital, so several hospital EMTs and security officers immediately rushed over to help, Abrams said, noting Garcia was held in the vehicle until the cops arrived and arrested him. Fatum was "rushed directly into the ER," the prosecutor said.
Despite two surgeries, Fatum is "still suffering from loss of function in the left hand," Abrams said, noting that doctors predict it could take months for her to get the full use of her hand back. The judge ordered Garcia to continue to be held on the previously set $500,000 bail."
Garcia has eight prior arrests, including one from June in which he was allegedly caught in a subway station with a knife also stashed in his boot.
He was previously convicted of head-butting a police officer who was trying to arrest him for allegedly hitting his sister in 2017. He also has a conviction for illegally carrying a boxcutter.
Back in the Upper Paleolithic when I was an EMT, we transported mentally disturbed patients in restraints. If they were let out of restraints for any reason, one of us was standing by to administer "O2 therapy" (an oxygen bottle upside the head.)