The plucky British tourist who lost her leg after she was struck by an out-of-control taxi in Midtown last month on Tuesday thanked the New Yorkers who came to her rescue.
“There’s good people in this world, very good people in this world that I can’t thank enough. They saved my life,” Sian Green said this morning on the “Today” show.
“If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t be sitting here right now telling this story,” she said, smiling and laughing as she spoke.
Green, 23, wore a stylish pink dress and sat in a wheelchair during the interview with Matt Lauer, her first since she was released from Bellevue Hospital.
After she was struck, several people rushed to her aid, including TV’s Dr. Mehmet Oz and plumber David Justino, who used a belt as a tourniquet to slow the bleeding.
Authorities blamed the accident on a road-rage beef between a cabby with a checkered driving record and a bicycle messenger with a lengthy rap sheet.
Green appeared on the show with her best friend, Keshia Warren, who was with her when the accident happened.
The aspiring model said she and Warren could hear the argument between the hack and the bike messenger in the seconds before she was struck at Sixth and West 49th Street at about 11:20 a.m. on Aug. 20 but had nowhere to run.
“I couldn’t move. It was one of them things. If I had gone left or right it would have got me,” she said.
City traffic still spooks her, she added.
“I haven’t been out in five weeks. It takes me back a little bit, and when I see a yellow car I’m just a bit [frightened],” she said.
Green said she cried for her mother in the ambulance taking her to Bellevue – and felt horrible that what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime turned into a nightmare for her folks back in the UK.
“The worst thing you want to hear is your daughter has been in an accident so far away from home,” she said. “Mom had to get the first flight out. I just couldn’t imagine what they were going through.”
And she praised her pal Warren.
“She’s been my rock. I couldn’t have done half of the things without her. I really couldn’t,” she said.
Sian’s left foot was severed when she was struck by a cab driven by Mohammed Faysal Himon, 24, of The Bronx, as she Warren were enjoying a snack from a food cart.
Doctors had to amputate more of her left leg at Bellevue, but were able to save her right leg, which was mangled.
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