Three workers at a Queens mental institution — who say they were savagely beaten by an ex-con killer being treated there — are suing the state for letting him live in the semi-open facility, saying their lives were ruined by the attack.
Molly Stephen, a 51-year-old case worker at the Institute for Community Living, came face to face with her accused attacker, Waheed Foster, 39, who stopped and asked to speak with her on June 7, 2010, even though she had nothing to do with his case.
Suddenly, for no reason, he began stabbing the mother-of- three.
“I completely blacked out, I couldn’t comprehend what was happening to me,” said Stephen, who uses a cane because of a stroke brought on by the vicious attack.
“Doctors didn’t know if I was going to survive — it took four hours to stop the bleeding in my chest.”
After that, cops said, he attacked workers Allie Hickenbottom and Sarah Smith — using his fists because he bent his knife using it on Stephen, cops said.
Foster, who’s been charged with the three attacks, has a criminal record that dates back to 1995, when he murdered his grandmother.
The state-run Institute is on the grounds of Creedmoor State Mental Hospital in Queens Village, where Foster also had been treated.
Chris DelliCarpini, who represents the three alleged victims and is seeking unspecified monetary damages in his Queens Supreme court lawsuit, said Waheed should have been under lock and key. Patients at the Institute can leave the building to pick up their medications and for other reasons.