Esha Ray and Graham Rayman
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — An off-duty FDNY firefighter sucker-punched and stomped while defending a couple from a group of young toughs on the Upper East Side suffered broken teeth and needed 25 stitches, his distraught parents revealed Monday.
“He’s lost five teeth, he’s got a mild concussion,” the firefighter’s mother told the Daily News. “He was pretty out of it when he was in the ambulance. For some time he didn’t know where he was.”
The 38-year-old firefighter intervened when he and his girlfriend witnessed a group of five teen boys and two teen girls taunting a couple on E. 86th St. near Second Ave. about 7:20 p.m. on Saturday.
When the firefighter told the teens to stop, one of the boys punched him in the back of the head, cops said. He fell hard to the concrete on his face and blood gushed from his head as the teens took off.
The victim was treated at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell and released. He was meeting with FDNY medical staff Monday.
“It seems pretty serious,” his mother said of his injuries. “All for doing a good deed.”
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