Video: Building maintenance worker hit by car in Manhattan parking dispute
UPPER WEST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) -- A building maintenance worker was struck by a car during a dispute over parking on the Upper West Side, and the horrifying incident was caught on surveillance camera.
It happened just before 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the building's garage on West 89th Street, where the victim, Eddie Martinez, got into a dispute with the driver who was double parked and blocking the entrance.
The driver began to drive away in the white 2015 Nissan sedan but then turned around, jumped the curb and drove straight into the victim, who was standing next to his scooter -- helmet on -- on the sidewalk.
"When I turn around, when I see they come to, it was too late for me to make a move," Martinez said.
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The video shows Martinez fly off the hood and into a brick wall. Amazingly, he gets up and even tosses something at the car as the driver flees the wrong way down 89th Street.
"Not even an animal, you do that thing," he said. "He treat me like a garbage bag."
WARNING: This video and the one in the player above may be disturbing for some viewers
Martinez says it came out of nowhere, and that he simply told the driver that he had to move.
"And he started to curse at me, like he started to say a lot of things to me," he said.
Martinez said he just waved it off and thought that was the end of it. But for the driver, it clearly wasn't.
"Thank God I have on my helmet on my head," Martinez said. "The most thing that help me is God, because the way this happened, I don't know. You what's funny, today is my birthday. and look, it's OK because I'm alive."
The driver also came inches away from backing up into a passing vehicle.
Martinez spent the night in the hospital before being released Friday morning.
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Police searched for the vehicle and pulled it over in front of 211 West 88th street around 7:45 p.m.
Amauris Nunez, 35, was arrested and charged with vehicular assault and leaving the scene of an accident with an injury.
Nunez has prior arrests for assault in 2014 and criminal mischief in 2010.
Anyone with additional information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA.
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