MANHATTAN — Days after she was stabbed repeatedly after drawing the ire of a knife-wielding woman on an uptown 6 train, a horrified woman told friends Wednesday she was recovering physically but is struggling mentally.
Heather Burke, 39, who survived the attack at the 59th Street-Lexington Avenue station Monday morning, wrote on Facebook Wednesday she had been discharged from the hospital but is still fearful.
"Someone … please tell me how I am ever supposed to leave my apartment again?" she wrote. "The mere thought terrifies me! Such a random act of violence."
"In a great deal of pain and cannot really move around but I am alive and I am so grateful for that fact!" the St. Louis native continued.
Burke — who is the mother of an 18-year-old daughter, according to the New York Daily News — was aboard an uptown 6 train Monday during rush-hour when Ashley Jacob, 31, lunged at her with a 3- to 4-inch knife as the train pulled into the station, witnesses and sources said.
Burke fled onto the platform at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, but Jacob followed her, stabbing her in the stomach and shoulder before onlookers could subdue her, police and witnesses said.
Jacob, who sources described as homeless, was detained by onlookers, cuffed by a pair of guards who ran downstairs from Bloomingdales, and then arrested and hauled off in a full-body restraint, police and witnesses said.
She had not yet been formerly charged as of Wednesday night, according to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
An NYPD spokesman said Monday the attacker would undergo a psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital. City Department of Corrections officials did not immediately respond to an inquiry about where Jacob is being held.
