having that dropped on my head ruined my life
A Manhattan woman who miraculously survived when a shopping cart crashed down on her head from an eight-story overpass , told a rapt courtroom Wednesday that her life was forever shattered by the attack
Marion Hedges broke down in tears as she told rapt jurors how the traumatic 2011 incident at the East River Plaza— where two teens hurled a shopping cart from a 79-foot-high landing outside a Harlem Target store — turned her world upside down, starting with her role as a mom.
“I adore my daughter,” Hedges said, referring to her oldest, Elizabeth, now 21.
“Unfortunately she doesn’t want to be with me. She’s angry at me after my injury. She went to go live with my mother-in-law,” Hedges testified in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“I annoy her, I disgust her. I’m fat. I don’t know how to dress. I have no fashion sense,” said Hedges, a former marketing agent for Valentino and Upper West Side philanthropist.
Her son Dayton, 20, was at the mall with his mom buying Halloween candy when the cart came crashing down. He watched as a passing medical resident had to revive her heart.
Dayton had been a confident, star athlete before the incident, but the trauma sapped him of that drive, she said.
“He had a presence back then. It just breaks my heart how he doesn’t have that oomph now,” Hedges tearfully testified.
She momentarily regained her composure as she spoke in the civil court trial about one of the most difficult repercussions of her brain injuries — her incontinence.
“It’s embarrassing and awful to say but I disgust myself. I don’t want to have sex with someone when I’m wearing a diaper,” she said frankly.
“I don’t want him touching me. I don’t want him coming near me,” she said, gesturing to her husband, who sat stoically in the courtroom.
She and Michael Hedges, a financier, have been married since 1991. He gently embraced her during a break in the testimony.
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The Hedges are suing the East River Plaza mall, and its security company Planned Security Services for unspecified damages.
They settled with Target in 2016 for an undisclosed amount. The two teenagers who pushed the cart over the walkway were sentenced to juvenile facilities in 2012.​
During cross examination the mall’s lawyer, Mathew Ross, tried to show that Hedges wasn’t as harmed by the accident as she’d claimed by showing the jury photos of her at a friend’s wedding without her cane or glasses.
“It would be fair to say that during the reception you were talking to your friends, you were having a good time?” Ross asked.
“I’m not embarrassed to say I went to a wedding,” Hedges replied.
The trial is expected to run through the middle of June.