An elderly Air Force veteran fighting for his life after being shoved by a stranger onto the tracks of a Manhattan subway station loves New York City, and is especially fond of taking the train, his daughter said Thursday.
Debbie Williams said she is praying that a miracle can save her 83-year-old dad, Richard Williams, who remained in critical condition with head injuries days after a heartless madman pushed him and another passenger off the platform at a busy Upper East Side station.
“My father loves the city,” the distraught daughter said. “He was on his way to get sushi. He took the subway all the time, He’s always been a New Yorker. He raised his three daughters on Long Island.”
Richard Williams is tended to by FDNY firefighters after he was randomly shoved to the subway tracks. (Courtesy of Jhon Rodriguez)
Before the cruel attack at the Lexington Ave.-63rd St. station, Williams was active, vibrant and healthy, and didn’t think twice about leaving his Roosevelt Island home to run errands in Manhattan, she said
Never did Williams suspect that he would be the victim of the kind of vicious attack he’d read about and heard about so many times before.
“He’s unresponsive,” she said. “He’s on a respirator. No changes. He’s considered critical. We’re praying for a miracle. It’s horrible.”
Richard Williams, now 83, pictured in younger days when he served in the Air Force as a jet mechanic. (Courtesy of Family)
She said the dire situation is hardest on Williams’ wife of 55 years, with whom he had just celebrated an anniversary. She said her father hasn’t been able to speak since the Sunday morning attack.
The daughter said she was comforted some by the kindness of strangers, including Jhon Rodriguez, 30, who was shoved to the same downtown tracks moments before her father. Despite his own injuries, Rodriguez and a good Samaritan got an unconscious Rodriguez back up onto the platform before a train barreled into the station.
Cops said neither Rodriguez nor Williams knew the accused subway shover.
Bairon Hernandez, 34, was arrested hours later, and charged with two counts of first-degree assault at his Manhattan Criminal Court arraignment for the back-to-back shovings.
Suspect Bairon Hernandez, 34, who allegedly shoved two people onto the subway tracks on Sunday, being perp-walked by detectives on the Upper East Side on March 10, 2026. (Kerry Burke/New York Daily News)
The Honduran national had two previous convictions in New Jersey and Texas related to illegally entering the U.S. The outcome of those cases was not immediately available.
Cops took Hernandez into custody Tuesday at a Brooklyn homeless shelter after someone called the NYPD in response to photos law enforcement disseminated to the public, police sources previously told The News.
Williams’ daughter said she was relieved a suspect was in custody.
“I hope he rots in hell,” she said. “To push one person down and then to push another down? I thank God that young man that was pushed first — that man, I have to give him my thanks. He helped my father out of the tracks, carried him pretty much. The people there that helped, it was amazing what happened.”