Written by Two 12-year-old boys were in police custody after allegedly dropping a shopping cart four stories onto a New York City mother who was out buying Halloween candy for underprivileged children. Marion Salmon Hedges, a wealthy Manhattan real-estate agent, was struck in the head by the falling cart on Sunday while walking outside a Target store with her 14-year-old son in East Harlem, the New York Post reports.
Gaurav Patel, a doctor who witnessed the incident, performed CPR on Hedges, who was later transported to Harlem Hospital where she remains in a medically-induced coma.
“We heard a little boy just screaming,” Patel’s wife, Susan Mahoney, told the newspaper. “Guarav said she was [in cardiac arrest] for about a minute. He did chest compressions, and she became responsive.”
The two young suspects were telling jokes and laughing with each other after they were taken into custody, police sources told the newspaper.
“They were just doing it for fun,” one law enforcement source said of the alleged crime.
The suspects were reportedly charged in Family Court with assault as juveniles.
The victim’s father-in-law, Michael Hedges, said prosecutors should “throw the book” at the two boys.
The New York Daily News reports that Hedges, a 47-year-old mother of two, is a volunteer at the Stanley M. Isaacs Neighborhood Center. Center executive director Wanda Wooten said Hedges also is active in her church.
