UPS driver jumps in to help save teenage robbery victim
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NEW YORK (WCBS) — A teenager was left lying in a Manhattan street after being beaten up over his sneakers, and a UPS driver didn’t think twice before jumping in when he saw that teen was in trouble.
The violent attack in Chelsea unfolded on May 14. Video shows two people in black chasing a teenager down to the ground, punching and kicking him before taking off with his Nike Air Force 1s.
But the first person on the scene was not your ordinary responder. This time, a UPS driver delivered a helping hand for the victim and words for the suspects.
“I yelled back, ‘Really? That’s all you want? You wanted his sneakers?’” Christopher McCall told CBS2’s Cory James.
He was the man in brown leaning over the 17-year-old, who was losing consciousness near 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue.
“He said, ‘I can’t breathe,’ and I said, ‘Can’t breathe?’ And he said, ‘I’m a diabetic,’” McCall said.
Surveillance video shows McCall then using one of his packages to prop the young man’s head so that he could get better oxygen.
“And I was like, just stay there, just stay there, we’re gonna call an ambulance, and I was telling everybody, ‘Somebody please call an ambulance,’” McCall said.
That somebody was a young woman who happened to capture a picture showing McCall with a banana in his hand that was given to him by another New Yorker stepping in to help the young man, whose sugar was dropping.
“I called 911,” the woman said. “It was amazing to see New Yorkers come together rather than just walk by … He was very heroic. He jumped in and handled it like it was his own kid.”
“He was a nice-looking young man,” McCall said. “And that was just like, yeah, he could have been dead. There was no stopping. It just looked like they just didn’t have no remorse or regard for life. They would have finished him over some sneakers.”
NYPD detectives arrested both suspects the next day, a 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy, who officers say are now facing charges of robbery and possession of stolen property.
For now, McCall is just thankful he was there at the right time, and he says he’s not done helping the teen, who is expected to recover.
“We’ll make him a UPS driver if he keeps moving forward,” McCall said, laughing.
A promise from a UPS driver whose heart is just as big as his smile.
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