A French photographer who flew into New York to take his girlfriend on a surprise Valentine’s date is recovering in hospital after having his throat slit in Harlem.
Gabriel Bascou, 28, was slashed in a random attack in the street as he left a pancake restaurant with his 23-year-old girlfriend Manon Duma on Friday.
Gruesome photos and a video shared by Bascou on social media show a deep gash on his neck from ear-to-ear as he lies in bed with a tube coming from his throat after a tracheotomy.
Police have charged 28-year-old local man Khalief Young with the crazed attack who is said to have carried out at least two random attacks before.
Bascou, from Paris, had flown to the Big Apple to see Duma, a model who moved to Harlem a month ago to work as an au pair.
Gabriel Bascou, 28, was slashed in a random attack in the street as he left a pancake restaurant with his 23-year-old girlfriend Manon Duma (by his side) on Friday
Bascou, from Paris, had flown to the Big Apple to surprise Duma, a model who moved to Harlem a month ago to work as an au pair. She is pictured here with a Valentine’s balloons in an Instagram post after he arrived last week
Police have charged 28-year-old local man Khalief Young with the crazed attack who is said to have carried out at least two random attacks before
He was attacked and slashed in the face and neck as they left IHOP on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard near West 132nd Street after a romantic breakfast date at around 11am.
‘I didn’t see him coming,’ Bascou said. ‘At first I thought it was a punch,’ he said in an interview with the New York Post via WhatsApp as he can’t speak after his operation.
He said the knifeman ‘turned around and looked me in the eye and started running. Then I felt the warm blood run inside my coat.’
The photographer said that passersby ‘didn’t understand what was going on’ as his girlfriend screamed for someone to call 911. Eventually a cyclist called an ambulance as Duma, a former nurse did her best to stem the blood flow.
Bascou added: ‘The people around me seemed terrified.’
He said he ‘did everything to stay calm’ and gave Duma his blood type and list of allergies in case he passed out.
He was later given a blood transfusion of two pints of blood and has been left with a lung infection as well as his knife wounds.
‘I’m in really bad shape for now,’ he said from the Harlem Hospital ICU on Monday.
Bascou said he had wanted to visit New York ‘since forever’ and decided to surprise his girlfriend for Valentine’s Day.
Bascou, from Paris, had flown in to surprise his girlfriend for Valentine’s Day but ended up getting slashed in the neck in a random attack outside a pancake restaurant in Harlem
Gruesome photos shared by Bascou on social media show a deep gash on his neck from ear-to-ear as he lies in bed with a tube coming from his throat after a tracheotomy
Duma said she ‘hasn’t slept’ since the attack but was relieved that police arrested 28-year-old Khalief Young as a suspect in the attack on Monday afternoon.
He was arrested by an officer who spotted him on the street around 3:50 p.m. and recognised him from CCTV footage of the attack.
He was charged with two counts of assault in the second degree, police said.
Young lives just two blocks from scene and has randomly attacked at least two others in the past, police sources told The Post.
Bascou wrote he was ‘super excited’ when told that that cops had someone in custody.
‘I want my girlfriend to stay safe here,’ he said. ‘If they caught someone in just a few days, they did a great job.’
Bascou’s mother, Marielle Debayne, a nurse from Marseille, has flown in be by his side while he recovers in hospital where he is expected to stay for at least a week.
His mother said: ‘It’s so awful. Gabriel was here for one day. He walked less than half a mile in New York and was cut.’
Friends of Bascou have started an online fundraiser to help him out with medical bills.
Bascou said he won’t let the attack out him off visiting the city again.
‘I’ll make it back to the Big Apple for a visit, especially after not seeing much else besides the inside of the Harlem IHOP.
‘I plan to come back there as soon as possible and discover this incredible city.’
Bascou with his mother, Marielle Debayne (centre), a nurse from Marseille and his grandmother who have flown in from France to be at his side while he recovers
Bascou, from Paris, had flown to the Big Apple to see Duma (left), a model who moved to Harlem a month ago to work as an au pair