Man stabbed with umbrella

An 80-year-old man defending his wife from an attack by a stranger in a lower Manhattan subway station was stabbed in the ear with the assailants umbrella, police said Monday.

The couple, heading home to Brooklyn, were transferring to an F train at the Broadway-Lafayette subway station about 3:30 p.m. Saturday when the bizarre altercation erupted.

The victim’s 78-year-old wife, a retired hospital worker specializing in child services, believes she may have accidentally bumped the attacker’s umbrella, setting him off, as she and her husband navigated a narrow section of the platform.

He berated her loudly, accusing her of being a racist as he poked her repeatedly with his umbrella. The couple, who are white, describe their attacker as black.

“He was spearing her in the back,” said the husband, a retired real estate broker, who asked that he and his wife’s names not be used for fear of retribution.

“Then he turned on me and took the umbrella like a spear. He said ‘I’m gonna kill you’ and he took the umbrella and stabbed it in my ear.”

Nobody came to their aid, the couple says.

“You don’t want to step into a deranged man,” the wife said. “You don’t know if he has a knife or a gun or what he’s gonna do.”

The couple managed to get away from their attacker and went to a local hospital for the husband to get checked out. Doctors told him his wounds were minor but that he should call police.

They reported the attack the next day.

They say their assailant, who appeared to be his 20s, was nattily dressed in a beret and gray sweater.

The suspect is still being sought.

“We live in the city — these things happen,” the husband said. “We move on to whatever’s next.”

With John Annese