The BMW driver whose trip was surrounded and destroyed by a gang of cyclists on Fifth Avenue was attacked in broad daylight while driving with his elderly mother, who shouted during his escape: “We will die, we will die. they will kill! ”
Max Torgovnick, 36, reported the heartbreaking collision to The Post a day after it took place around 4pm on Tuesday at 21st Street and Fifth Avenue.
“It’s something I never expected to happen in New York City,” said Torgovnick, a lifelong city resident. “This is how it would look on the streets of a war zone. I never thought New York would be so bad. ”
Torgovnick and his mother had just left a donation to Housing Works, a non-profit organization that helped combat homelessness and the AIDS crisis, and were driving to his father’s neurology office when they met. with what he estimated were about 50 teenage cyclists, Torgovnick said.
“I slowed down to let them pass, but then they started circling the car on either side, and one of the motorists got behind the wheel and got into the back of my car,” Torgovnick said. “I stopped to make sure no one was injured.”
That’s when the group started hitting the car with their fists, feet and even bikes, and tried to open the doors while shouting, “Get out! Get out !, according to Torgovnick and a wild video of the incident.
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“All I thought about was that incident a couple of years ago on the West Side Highway,” Torgovnick said, referring to a 2013 incident in which a gang of cyclists fell on a man driving with his family, which led him to speed them up out of fear. for their own safety.
Eventually, a motorcyclist jumped into the car and jumped on the windshield, causing his partial fall.
“At the time, I was afraid they were going to break the window, get in the car, get in and get us out,” Torgovnick said of him and his mother, who is about 70 years old. “My only thoughts at the time were self-defense, [that] I wanted to protect my mother and I didn’t want to hurt anyone either. “
All the while, his mother frantically dialed 911.
“He was shouting, ‘We’ll die, they’ll kill us,'” Torgovnick recalled.
Torgovnick finally “found an opening” through the bicycle lock and drove a few blocks to safety.
Police are looking for the perpetrators, who similarly attacked at least one other vehicle, a yellow cab, at the same time and place.
After the nightmare encounter, Torgovnick said he had to see the good side of town calling home.
“The cops were incredibly comforting,” Torgovnick said, noting that they drove his mother to his father’s office while good-hearted strangers waited with him for a trailer. “It simply came to our notice then. They are very useful. “