A young mom who was one of three innocent bystanders shot in Times Square recalled begging for her life as she lay bleeding on the ground — while callous bystanders recorded her on their phones.
Wendy Magrinat, 23, relived the harrowing moments in an interview with The Post on Sunday, saying the bullet is still lodged in her leg.
"I was screaming, ‘I don’t want to die, please help me!’ — and people were just recording, they weren’t helping," the tourist said of the shooting Saturday that left her, another woman and a 4-year-old girl with gunshot wounds.
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Magrinat had been waiting to get into the Line Friends store on Broadway with her mom, stepfather, 8-year-old sister, as well as her own husband, Yoel, who was holding their 2-year-old daughter, Elise, she recalled.
As they waited, they became aware of a fight between at least two men, one of whom was standing "practically next to me," Magrinat recalled.
"A guy called another guy by the [N-word], and I told my husband, ‘This is getting a little heat[ed] up,'" she said, as her husband shifted ahead in line to try to distance himself and their daughter from the chaos.
"Everything was so fast, but the shooting started — and the first shot went to my leg," she recalled.
"I just covered it and ran a little, just to get my daughter and my family to safety — but I couldn’t. The pain was too much, and I dropped to the floor," she said.
"I felt really dizzy, and I was losing blood and I just started screaming, ‘I got shot! I got shot! I don’t want to die!'" she said.
Magrinat, who was in the city for a family reunion, remembered repeatedly begging others to get her 2-year-old daughter to safety.
"I was screaming, ‘I don’t want to die, please help me!’ — and people were just recording, they weren’t helping," she said. "I was on the floor and a group just surrounded me, all with their phones recording. I understand … people get in shock. But if you’re in shock, you shouldn’t be recording. But that’s how people are right now."
New York Police Department released images of a person of interest in the shooting. ((Photo: New York Police Department))
She said the only ones who helped her were the "amazing" NYPD officers.
"They came running right away, and they got me to an ambulance really fast, along with the 4-year-old girl who was hurt," Magrinat recalled.
"When I got to the hospital, I had a team waiting for me," she said.
There, surgeons decided against removing the bullet that was lodged high in her right thigh, fearing it would worsen the damage.
"So I live with a bullet in my leg," she said. "I’m on a lot of painkillers but the pain never goes away. The pain is always there, you just have to hold it and hope it gets better," she said, saying she is unable to walk.
"Thankfully, I was really lucky that it didn’t hit any arteries or the bone or the muscle," she said.
She also called it "God’s will" that the bullet hit her and not little Elise, saying, "I would have died if my daughter would have gotten shot.
"All I kept thinking was, ‘I have a 2-year-old child — it could have been her, or it was possible I’d never get to see her again.'"
Thankfully, her daughter is so young she "didn’t know what was going on" and initially laughed when she saw her parents fleeing for their lives, assuming it was a game, Magrinat said.
But Magrinat’s sister — who came up from Florida with their mom to see them — " kept screaming and knew everything that was going on. It was traumatic for her," she said.
"My mother was also completely traumatized," she said.
The family has met up in New York before — but is now in no rush to return.
"It was a traumatic experience, and I think until the gun violence is a little controlled — it’s gonna be a long time before I go back to New York," Magrinat said.
(Photo: New York Police Department) (New York Police Department)
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Detectives have surveillance footage that shows the alleged shooter walking eastbound outside the Minskoff Theater on West 45th just before 5 p.m. Saturday before he stepped back to talk to another man, sources told The Post.
The footage shows him raising his right arm and firing several rounds from a semi-automatic pistol, the sources said — hitting the three bystanders.
The 4-year-old girl from Brooklyn — identified by sources as Skye Martinez — was struck in the lower left calf, with the bullet completely breaking the leg, sources said. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital for surgery.
In addition to Magrinat, Marcela Aldana, 43, from Passaic, New Jersey, was hit in the left foot, with a bullet to be removed in surgery later, sources said.
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The shooter had been wearing a black jacket and black Adidas pants at the time — but seemingly stripped off before he was caught on surveillance footage in a distinctive-looking shirt with the number "9."
Early Sunday, officers with a canine unit were photographed by The Post pulling clothes matching what the suspect had been wearing at the time of the shooting from a trash can on the corner of 10th Avenue and 42nd Street.
Officers were also seen going in and out of a building there, although it is not immediately clear if it is tied to the suspect.
This story first appeared in the New York Post.
