A car crash led to a savage brawl on the streets of Brooklyn, where a stabbing victim gouged out his rival’s eye before collapsing in a pool of his own blood Thursday, police and witnesses said.
The struggle kicked off shortly after a 47-year-old man crashed his car into another man, 46, walking near Shepherd and New Lots Aves. in East New York around 11 a.m., police said.
The older man got out of his vehicle and stabbed the pedestrian in the stomach, who in turn chased the man down and punched his opponent’s eye out, according to law enforcement.
It was not immediately clear what sparked the crash. Police sources said the bloody clash stemmed from an ongoing dispute between the two men.
A nearby resident told the Daily News he’d gone outside to smoke a cigarette when he heard the sound of screeching tires in the distance and then looked over to see two men running up the street — one of them bleeding profusely.
“It looked like they were running towards us,” said George Ylitalo, 35. “I saw the guy coming down that way and the dude chasing behind him with blood gushing out of him.”
The chase lasted three blocks before the fleeing older man ducked behind a parked car, only for his wounded pursuer to leap atop the vehicle, Ylitalo said.
“I wish I had a video. It was absolutely insane,” the witness said. “This guy was determined to get the guy who stabbed him. I have to give it to him. The amount of blood that it looked like he had lost, it was just insane.”
The man on the ground tried to ward off his pursuer with a traffic cone, but the stabbing victim managed to evade the blow before tackling the man below.
“The guy dodged it and got on top of him. He really was wailing on him,” said Ylitalo.
It was amid the beating that followed that Ylitalo heard a blood-curdling scream, which Ylitalo realized only later was the wailing of a man whose eye had just been ripped from its socket.
“It wasn’t like a regular type of, ‘Ow ow, my face.’ I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s very rare you hear a man scream like that,” the witness said.
After gouging his opponent’s eye, the stabbing victim got up and took a few steps before collapsing in the street.
“He fell in between two cars,” Ylitalo said. “He was barely conscious. The amount of blood that was coming out of him, it was theatrical, bro. It was ridiculous.”
Ylitalo applied pressure to the stab victim’s wound as his friend called 911 and onlookers recorded the carnage on their phones.
It was only after medics arrived that a police officer pointed out the older man’s eyeball, Ylitalo said.
“It was literally just lying on the sidewalk,” Ylitalo said. “It got to the point where the cop had to cover it with a hat, because people were going crazy trying to get photos of it.”
“This is not what I got up this morning expecting to deal with, for sure.”
Medics took both men to Brookdale University Hospital, where they are in stable condition.
Charges against the two men were pending.