His sliced ear was hanging off his face and his blood was pooling at his feet as 56-year-old Amarjit Singh stood on the corner looking desperately for help.
Then Singh gazed back up Second Ave. toward the Texas Smokehouse restaurant, where he had been preparing for another long day as a chef when the bare-chested madman came in and grabbed at least four knives from the kitchen.
The madman who had slashed Singh and sent him fleeing down to E. 34th St. was now up at the next corner, repeatedly stabbing a 67-year-old woman outside the Gemini Diner.
Singh instantly made a decision that proved him one of our city's very best and bravest. This chef from Queens by way of India became New York royalty as he forgot his own wounds and dashed straight back into the mortal danger he had just been so lucky to escape.
The madman looked up from the bloodied woman and rose on seeing the courageous Singh approach. A 25-year-old onlooker named Antionette Brown watched amazed as the madman slowly backed up. He was clutching at least four knives but seemed unnerved by Singh's uncommon courage and selflessness, as if Evil were being vanquished purely by the power of Good.
"He probably saved her life," Brown later said.
Another representative of Good appeared, in the person of off-duty Police Officer Gregory Chin stepping from the diner. He identified himself and ended up shooting the still-crazed madman once in the stomach only after ordering him five times to drop the knives.
In the meanwhile, Singh grabbed towels and aprons from the Smokehouse. Onlookers then watched Singh ignore his own wounds as he sought to stem the woman's bleeding. He was joined by two off-duty New Jersey firefighters.
Other cops arrived, along with paramedics. The woman and Singh were rushed to the hospital, as was the gunman.
"Still fighting," a cop later noted.
The area was closed off with crime scene tape. Police identified the woman as 67-year-old Susan Barron and said she had been attacked while on her way with her little black Scottish terrier, Velvet, to Good Shepherd Church on E. 31st St. for the annual blessing of the pets.
"Obviously not a Brooklyn dog," one officer said. "I don't want to disparage Manhattan dogs, but a good Brooklyn dog would have ended it before the cop got there."
The officer looked over to the pile of bloodstained aprons and towels at the southwest corner of E. 35th St. and Second Ave., where Singh had knelt to help the woman while his own blood poured down his face.
"Good guy," the officer said.
A block down at the southwest corner of E. 34th St. and Second Ave., a disturbingly large bloodstain was turning a dark brown on the sun-baked sidewalk where Singh had stood looking for help. He had been bleeding heavily enough that the blood had run along a seam in the pavement.
But where most sidewalk bloodstains mark only another of the city's horrors, this irregular, 2-foot-wide patch of gore recorded the spot where a chef who came here from Punjab two decades ago proved himself one of the city's great blessings. He was already the father of three grown children and was known to his family as hardworking, gentle, friendly and "a very good guy."
He now also becomes kin to such other remarkably good guys as the construction worker who threw himself atop a stranger as a subway train bore down on them.
Singh could have continued fleeing down Second Ave. from the madman who had just slashed him. Or he could have remained on that bloody spot until help came. He did not.
And after that blood is washed away, we should not forget the choice Amarjit Singh made on the morning of Oct. 6, 2007, as he stood at the corner of E. 34th St. and Second Ave.
:banghead:
