Nearly seven years after two boys pushed a shopping cart off a walkway at a Manhattan mall, severely injuring a woman four stories below, a jury decided to award more than $45 million to her and her family. 
 
 The woman, Marion Hedges, had just shopped for Halloween candy with her son, Dayton, then 13, at the East River Plaza Mall in East Harlem in October 2011 and was at a parking kiosk when the two boys hoisted the cart over a railing above. It plummeted more than 70 feet and struck Ms. Hedges on the head. 
 
 Ms. Hedges, a philanthropist, stopped breathing and was rushed to the hospital. She suffered serious brain damage and today she struggles with diminished cognitive abilities, double vision, incontinence and memory loss, her lawyer, Thomas Moore, said. 
 
 Court documents show that Ms. Hedges and her family sued the mall and Planned Security Service, which was under contract to secure the mall’s common areas, including the walkway where the boys pushed the shopping cart over the edge. 

 The Upper West Side woman who was nearly killed by... 
 
 An Upper West Side philanthropist who was nearly killed by a shopping cart that was tossed by teens from an overpass won a $45.2 million jury award Friday — and said she plans to donate a portion of the money to a local youth center. 
 
 Victim Marion Hedges, 53, shook with emotion when the verdict was announced — but she didn’t shed a tear because a side effect of her brain damage is the inability to cry. 
 
 She then stood and applauded the jurors before they left Manhattan Supreme Court. 
 
 “It’s been a long, long road,” Hedges said. 
 
 Hedges and her son were buying Halloween candy for poor kids on Oct. 30, 2011, at the East River Plaza mall in East Harlem when the teens tossed the cart from a 79-foot-high landing outside a Target store. 
 
 Hedges suffered severe brain injuries when the cart knocked her to the ground. But she never blamed Jeovanni Rosario, 13, and Raymond Hernandez, 12, who were behind the incident. Both teens were sentenced to time in juvenile facilities. 
 
 “I just want to be able to do something with the money that helps kids in Harlem, I really do,” Hedges said after the verdict, specifying that she’d like to support the Johnson Community Center on East 113th Street. 
 
 “We want to help Harlem kids have a chance to do something besides throw a shopping cart on a boring Sunday afternoon,” she said. 
 
 The judge was wowed by the Manhattan mom’s attitude throughout the case. 
 
 “I think you have shown us all how to live in the face of adversity,” Justice Carmen St. George had said at the end of the trial. 
 
 Hedges, her son, Dayton, and her husband, Michael, sued Target, the mall and its security company for negligence in 2011, saying the businesses ignored past incidents involving kids fooling around with carts. 
 
 The Hedgeses previously settled with Target for a confidential sum. 
 
 The six-person jury found the teens 10 percent responsible for Hedges’ injuries while assigning 65 percent of the fault to the mall and 25 percent to Planned Security Services. 
 
 Jurors awarded Hedges $40.7 million, her 19-year-old son $2.5 million and her husband $2 million. Dayton Hedges testified that he still has nightmares about the incident, and his father said he has become more of a caretaker than a husband. 
 
 One juror, Joel Walker, told The Post that “money can’t buy back what she’ll be missing the rest of her life. 
 
 “This was a horrible, horrible incident that happened to Mrs. Hedges and her family,” said Walker, 43. 
 
 The jurors reached the verdict after just three hours of deliberating following a four-and-a-half-week trial. 
 
 The defendants plan to appeal.
– A woman who was nearly killed when two boys tossed a shopping cart from an overpass at a Manhattan mall has just been awarded $45 million. A jury this week awarded 53-year-old Marion Hedges the money seven years after the incident at the East River Plaza Mall left her with severe brain injuries, reports the New York Times. She has partially recovered, though she continues to suffer the effects today, as evidenced by this line in the New York Post: Hedges "shook with emotion when the verdict was announced—but she didn’t shed a tear because a side effect of her brain damage is the inability to cry." Hedges had been returning to her car in a parking kiosk after shopping for Halloween candy when two boys, ages 12 and 13, dumped a shopping cart from a walkway more than 70 feet above her. The cart struck her in the head. The boys were caught and served time in a juvenile detention facility, but the jury found them only 10% responsible. Jurors deemed the mall 65% responsible and a security company the remaining 25%. Hedges is a philanthropist, and she promises to use part of the money to help kids in the neighborhood. “We want to help Harlem kids have a chance to do something besides throw a shopping cart on a boring Sunday afternoon,” she said. The judge in the case lauded her attitude when the trial was over. “I think you have shown us all how to live in the face of adversity,” said Justice Carmen St. George, per the Post. Specifically, the jury awarded Hedges $40.7 million, her husband $2.5 million, and her son (who was shopping with her that day) $2 million.