Six weeks ago, one time Manhattan cook Amarjit Singh saved psychologist Susan Barron's life by staving off a stabber, but today he is without a job, and desparately needs help.
Singh never thought the mugging incident would alter his life, but it has.
"Now it's a very different life. Before, I worked and I was happy. Now I stay at home all the time, thinking. I'm going crazy. I've no money, no nothing. I want anybody to help me," the New York Daily News quoted 56-year-old Singh, as saying.
Singh was the first target of 38-year-old Lee Coleman, who went on a bloody rampage along New York's Second Avenue on October 6.
He was preparing food at the Texas Smokehouse restaurant when Coleman entered and stole several knives before slashing the cook across the face and chasing him into the street.
Seconds later, Coleman - who relatives say is schizophrenic and bipolar and had not been taking his medication - turned the blades on Barron, 67, who was walking to church with her dog.
With blood gushing down his face, Singh made a split-second decision to rush back and confront Coleman as he plunged the knives into Barron's head, neck and body.
Off-duty transit cop Gregory Chin then shot and wounded Coleman after he refused to drop the knives.
"I saw her in hospital," Singh said of Barron. "She said, 'Thank you very much; you saved my life.'"
Singh, however, is too scared to return to his rental apartment, just blocks from where he was attacked. So, now he sleeps on a sofa in a friend's living room in Queens.
He can't walk more than half a block without having to rest . He has also lost feeling in the left side of his face and can no longer hear out of his left ear, which was nearly cut off.
He suffers flashbacks and nightmares from the attack, and although the New York State Crime Victims Board is paying his medical bills, the boss he spent 22 years working for has visited him just twice since the attack, Singh said.
The restaurant has remained closed, and Singh says he was never offered any compensation. He has not even been told whether he will get his job back if the business reopens.
"I lose everything. All day I'm at home; this is like jail because I don't want to stay at home all the time. My boss always say I was like family," he added.
Singh is applying for workers' compensation but has no idea how he will live on the small handout.
He used to make 700 dollars a week and sent about 1,500 dollars a month to his four children in India. Now, they rely on relatives.
"People always say 'hero' but what is a hero? It means nothing," he says in a resigned manner. (ANI)