The Queens single mother, who was clinging to life after being brutally beaten and robbed of her e-bike on Randalls Island, was left unconscious on the ground for nearly six hours before being discovered by a passerby the next morning, according to the Daily News.
Diana Agudelo was biking home from her job as a janitor at an East Harlem museum, taking her usual shortcut through Randalls Island to her Astoria apartment, when she was attacked around 11:30 p.m. on Friday.
One or more assailants struck her several times in the head and face before allegedly stealing her e-bike and belongings.
A passerby didn’t notice her unconscious near the bike path until around 5:15 a.m. the next day, as the sky began to lighten on the sparsely populated island, which is home to sports fields and institutions such as shelters, a psychiatric hospital, and an FDNY training facility.
Agudelo underwent surgery on Wednesday to relieve pressure on her brain, but she has only a 1% chance of survival, her heartbroken daughter told the Daily News on Thursday.
Stephanie Rodas, 21, said the doctor told her that her injuries had a 99% chance of causing death. “We still have faith. I know she’s fighting, and there were times when she put pressure on my hands while I held hers.”
“This morning they performed a CT scan on her brain,” she told me. “They said it looks the same and a little better with the blood/swelling being stable.”
Agudelo’s 22-year-old son fell asleep Friday night, before his mother was due to return home from her job at the Museum of the City of New York. Rodas was not home that night, but she had FaceTimed with her mother hours before.
Agudelo was discovered by a passerby near a bike path at E. 125th St. and Rivers Edge Road, and medics rushed her to Elmhurst Hospital, where she is still in critical condition in a medically induced coma.
Meanwhile, when Agudelo failed to return to work on Saturday morning, her concerned colleagues called her, according to a source. A stranger answered the phone and agreed to meet with Agudelo’s coworkers to deliver it to them. The stranger is thought to have stumbled upon the phone following the attack.
Following the victim’s phone call, concerned coworkers went to her Astoria apartment.
“She just never made it home and we didn’t know anything until the next morning when someone turned in my mom’s phone,” Rodas told me. “That’s when her coworkers knew something was wrong and they came to my house and they were knocking on the door for my brother to come out.”
Rodas reported that her mother’s jacket, backpack with her wallet inside, and glasses were all missing following the beating, in addition to her e-bike. Police informed her family that one of her black Skechers sneakers had been discovered in a trash can near the scene.
Rodas and her older brother have spent every waking moment at their mother’s hospital bedside since Saturday.
“She was so swollen, you couldn’t recognize her. “I didn’t recognize my own mother when I saw her,” Rodas said on Wednesday. “Her eyes were pitch black. When you opened her eyes, they were bloodshot red. She could not even move. She couldn’t speak. She was on life support. “She was a bloody mess.”
Doctors have informed Agudelo’s family that if she survives, she will lose all or most of her ability to move the right side of her body and will be blind in the top of her right eye. She may also have memory issues, the severity of which is unknown.
Agudelo’s coworkers started a GoFundMe campaign that quickly raised more than $19,000 for her ongoing medical care.
“The whole museum is shaken,” one of Agudelo’s coworkers, who asked not to be identified, told the Daily News. “Diane is a good worker and a wonderful person.”
“We couldn’t believe it when we heard,” the coworker added. “We have to leave here at late hours for (special) events. “It is not safe.”
The attack occurred in a dead zone on the island, with no surveillance cameras and no arrests made.
Anyone with information is asked to contact NYPD Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
