A painful punch
A Bronx man sucker punched by a stranger this week doesn’t know why a random attacker socked him — or how he’s going to pay for his medical bills.
A crazed man made a beeline for 62-year-old Jorge Ibarra Martinez at around 11:45 a.m. Monday in University Heights, and knocked him unconscious, new surveillance video shows.
Martinez didn’t realize he had been hit until he woke up later at St. Barnabas Hospital.
“There was pain in my jaw, the back of my head. It felt like my head was going to explode. When they released me from the hospital, I was uneasy because I still felt nauseous and dizzy,” Martinez told the Daily News on Friday.
“I was supposed to work this week but I haven’t been able to,” said Martinez, who works at a New Jersey perfume factory and buses tables on weekends. “I only have an emergency insurance [policy] ... How am I supposed to pay for all of this?”
Police are still looking for the suspect, who was last seen boarding a BX40 bus heading east, cops said.
Martinez first left his apartment at around 11:30 a.m. to grab lunch for himself and his partner of eight years, Maria Alonzo Franco.
The two were supposed to meet up before heading off to work at the perfume factory — but Franco grew worried when an hour passed and he hadn’t showed.
“I was calling and calling [him] and nothing. I said, ‘Dear God, he’s not answering his phone,’ ” she said. “I was waiting and he didn’t come.”
Franco, 64, went searching for Martinez at the store before heading over to the NYPD’s 46th Precinct where police directed her to call 911.
Thirty minutes later, police called Franco and told her Martinez was at St. Barnabas.
“They called me and told me he was at the hospital, so I went straight there,” she said.
“I can’t work. I don’t feel comfortable leaving him here knowing he doesn’t feel well,” Franco added. “It seems like the hit he sustained was really heavy.”
Martinez, originally from Puebla, Mexico, and a city resident for 12 years, said he has never seen the man who left him with a throbbing head and what he expects will be a high medical bill.
“They haven’t sent [the bills] yet, but I’m sure they are going to send it. We are just waiting.”
“I’ve walked down the road plenty of times but I had never seen him before,” he added. “He didn’t rob me. He just went up and hit me. I don’t know why.
“I am a little afraid, but the only thing that I ask is for police officers to be able to catch people who keep doing this.”
Police are asking anyone with information to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.