A 66-year-old Brooklyn man is thanking his lucky stars for being alive after a crazed U-Haul truck driver almost ran him over during a violent rampage.
Mohamed Abdelmagid was walking on the sidewalk along Third Avenue in Bay Ridge. Like most New Yorkers, he was looking down at his phone on his way to work. Something made him look up, and that's when he saw the front of the U-Haul truck coming straight for him.
"When I look, there’s only a small distance between me and the car,” explained Abdelmagid. "It was fast like a second or two seconds."
Security video of captured the incident and the action-hero-like maneuver Abdelmagid made to get out of harms way. He can't believe he was spry enough to evade death in that instant.
"I want to go to the right but I feel he hit me. For less than a second I jump, I don’t know how I did it. It’s God he did everything not me," he said.
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As he dove across the sidewalk to avoid being killed by the truck, Abdelmagid fell on the sidewalk, the vehicle passing so close that he said it clipped his foot as he dove. He fractured ribs, left wrist, right ankle and foot — but grateful and amazed he is alive.
"If you tell me to do this again, I could never," he said, adding "I thank God I still have my life, my time is not now."
Police said the driver, 62-year-old Weng Sor, ran over seven others, killing 44-year-old father Yije Ye in the span of an hour. Another man was hospitalized and said to be in critical condition with bleeding on the brain.
A cousin said that Tije Ye moved to the U.S. from China nearly two decades ago, and neighbors said he lived in Bay Ridge. He was delivering food when he was struck, and leaves behind three teenage daughters. The family said that the tragedy has "shattered their American dream."
Sor has been charged with one count of murder and seven counts of attempted murder for the reign of terror that started in Sunset Park and tore through Bay Ridge as he struck down the victims, most of whom were on bicycles. It all ended near Red Hook, where he was arrested as police surrounded the vehicle.
As for the motive, police believe Sor — who has a history of mental illness — was in the midst of a mental episode. When he was being arrested, Sor told the officers "you should have shot me," according to police.
"He stated when he's driving his van, he sees an invisible object come toward the car and he's had enough when he goes on his rampage," said NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig.
