Bruises, a sore wrist and interviews with a police detective are among the memories a Red Deer dental assistant has brought back from New York after what she now believes was a brush with a terrorist.
On Saturday evening, Marina Coldwell and two of her co-workers from the Bower Dental Centre were wrapping up a New York excursion rewarded to them by their employer, Dr. Michael Zuk.
The three women had gone outside their hotel, located about three blocks from Times Square at about 7:15 p.m. when they noticed a commotion.
Coldwell, 46, approached a firefighter and asked what was going on. The man could tell her only that police were investigating a suspicious vehicle parked on the street at Times Square.
Police had blocked off traffic and the streets were jammed with people when a tall, athletically-built man burst through crowd and smashed into Coldwell, knocking her backward and tearing the brooch off of her shirt.
“Out of nowhere, this guy just plows into me. He was very strong, his chest was like running into a wall.”
Nobody knew at the time that there was a bomb, so Coldwell and her friends could not figure out why the man was running so hard.
“We went for dinner, I just kind of whined about how I lost my brooch.”
Coldwell was safe at home in Red Deer the next evening, watching coverage of a foiled car-bombing attempt in Times Square, when she saw something that brought her heart to her throat.
“My heart started to pound Sunday night when I turned on CNN. When I watched that video for the first time, I knew exactly who that man was that ran into me. I never even thought about him until watching that video and seeing him taking his shirt off, and I’m, like, that’s the guy that hit me.”
After chatting about the incident with Zuk at work on Monday, she decided to phone the police in New York and describe what had happened. She spoke twice with a New York detective and has put the shirt she was wearing away in case it picked up any evidence at the scene.
At this point, Coldwell does not believe the man who struck her was the same man who police have arrested in relation to the bombing attempt, but she is certain that he was involved.
“I never connected terrorism — even though two days before I had been at Ground Zero.”
Coldwell said she was deeply moved during the tour to learn that their guide’s husband was among the people killed in the attack. No trace of him had ever been found.
Despite the ordeal, Coldwell said her opinion of New York has not changed and she would go back in a heartbeat.
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com
