Woman may have been pricked by needle at Midtown subway station

MIDTOWN, Manhattan (WABC) -- A woman appears to have been punctured by a needle when she was bumped at a busy Midtown subway station Wednesday night.

The 37-year-old woman was entering the turnstile at Seventh Avenue and 49th Street just before 7 p.m. when she felt a slight poke.

When she went home, she realized she had been punctured in her right shoulder.

She was taken to the Mount Sinai Hospital Queens in Astoria to be checked out, where it was determined she may have been punctured with a needle.

Police are looking for a male in his 40s.

"That kind of warm, stinging, pain feeling," said the woman, who tells us she was just on her way home from work, waiting for the N train when a man approached and was too close for comfort.

"And then I felt like this sharp pain in my right shoulder," the victim said. "All these thoughts started going through my mind, because I was like, what'd this guy poke me with? You know I got scared, I didn't wanna wait any longer and went straight to the emergency room."

When she got home, her husband saw a puncture wound. So the woman went right to the emergency room and doctors confirmed it.

"They told me I was punctured with something needle-like." she said.

She's now on a cocktail of anti-viral medication, to prevent HIV and Hepatitis B.

Her attack came at a time when subway slashings and stabbings in the city are now double what they were last year during the same time.

Thursday, on a radio show on Hot 97, Mayor Bill de Blasio stressed that overall, the numbers of these attacks are still miniscule considering the millions who ride the subways each day.

"We've had these incidents on the subway, they're obviously distressing to people," said the mayor. "The fact is they're individual incidents, they are not related."

For her part, the latest victim is pleading with other New Yorkers to do a seemingly simple thing: Just stop looking at our phones. Instead, to look around us in the subways for our own safety.

"I didn't do that and I feel like maybe if I would've taken that advice then this wouldn't have happened, if I was more aware of like, my surroundings," she said.

The suspect is described as a white man in his 40's, 6 feet tall, with a sturdy build. He has blonde hair, and was wearing glasses and a blue and white plaid shirt/jacket.