THISCLOSE TO DEATH
Vic: Stab sparked by sugar in McD’s coffee
Edmund Pieters was having a quiet McDonald’s breakfast of cinnamon rolls and sweet tea when he came within an inch of dying over a fellow fast-food customer’s out-of-control sugar rush.
Pieters, 56, a former demolition worker on disability, said that on Tuesday he had just come from a doctor’s appointment on W. 35th St., where he gets his insulin and other medication to treat his diabetes — and stopped at the McDonald’s he regularly visits two or three times a week.
Breakfast was anything but normal that morning.
An argument erupted, with another customer angry over there not being enough sugar in his coffee.
“He was screaming at the manager, the people in back, everybody,” Pieters, a life-long Brooklynite with two daughters and four grandchildren, told the Daily News. “He was making a real scene.”
“He was arguing about sugar in his coffee,” Pieters said. “Of all things, he wanted four more sugars. He kept going back for sugar. What did he need with like 15 sugars?
“He drank the coffee and he’s yelling, ‘I’m not satisfied,’ ” he said. “And they refunded his money. It couldn’t be more than $1.39.”
Pieters said the security guard looked frightened.
“I could see it in her face. She was telling him, ‘you gotta go’,” he recounted. “I went up behind him because he was [pretending] like he was going to hit her. She was jumpy.
“I said ‘you’re not going to touch her,’ ” Pieters told the man. “‘You gotta go.’
Pieters followed them out to make sure “he didn’t swing on her,’ ” he added. But then the sugar fiend dropped his bags and challenged Pieters. “‘What do you want to do? Come on. Come on,’ ” Pieters recalled him saying.
“[The security guard] was in between us and he threw the first blow,” Pieters said. “It was like a tap. I couldn’t tell if it landed.
“That’s when he got the knife [and] ... stabbed me in the chest,” he said. “He tried to get me in the heart. An inch more and I would’ve been done.”
Pieters said the knifing surprised him — but didn’t stop him.
“I looked down and the blood was gushing,” he said. “I went after him but I was getting weaker and weaker until I went down. He disappeared into Penn Station.
“The knife must’ve been 5 or 6 inches — a nice size,” he said. “The wound was right up under my heart. The doctor said any closer and you wouldn’t be sitting here. And the doctor’s right, I’m definitely blessed.”
Pieters was taken to Bellevue by ambulance were he was supposed to stay a couple of days, but signed himself out because he wanted to go home, he said.
The suspected stabber, described as a bearded man with glasses carrying several tote bags, ran off and was still being sought Wednesday. Police released surveillance images of the man in the hope someone recognizes him.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.