Woman Faces Ex In Court After Her Legs Were Severed When He Pushed Her In Front of Moving Train

"An iteration of me was murdered that day. One that could feel the earth beneath her feet," Ada Blake, who now uses a motorized wheelchair, said in a victim impact statement, per the New York Post, as her former boyfriend Christian Valdez was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the March 2024 assault.

Valdez, 36, pleaded guilty in June to one count of attempted murder in the second degree for the attack, which occurred during an argument with Blake on the platform of the 2/3 train at Fulton Street station.

"He viciously threw me into the path of the oncoming [train] and in genuine disbelief, my body made contact with filth and screaming steel," she recalled in court. "I remember bits of flesh from my legs in my own hands when I was rescued from the tracks."

Blake, who was 29 at the time, lost both her legs as a result of the attack. Prosecutors said she also sustained fractured ribs and a blood clot in her lungs.

"[To] feel the comfort of a soft filler, feel the pile of a shag carpet, feel the water flow between your toes… I mourn the life that I lived with my feet," she said.

The shocking attack happened just one day after Valdez, a parolee, removed his ankle monitor. He fled to New Jersey after the incident but returned to New York City hours later, where he was arrested in Brooklyn. At the time, he was already on parole for a 2020 stabbing involving a Bronx woman and her 4-year-old daughter.

During Tuesday's sentencing, Valdez showed no remorse and did not offer an apology to the victim.

Blake, meanwhile, expressed the long-term emotional and psychological scars the incident left behind.

"I will never feel safe or comforted on the subway again," she said. "Perverse circumstances have left me traumatized, disfigured and marginalized even further and vulnerably on Earth as an African American disabled female."

In addition to the 18-year prison sentence, Valdez was also ordered to serve five years of post-release supervision and received a full order of protection barring him from contacting Blake.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement that he hoped the sentencing brought some relief to Blake.

"Christian Valdez will serve nearly two decades in prison following his conviction for committing a life-threatening act of domestic violence in our transit system," Bragg said, per The Post. "As a result of this extremely serious attack, the victim has permanent physical injuries, and experiences emotional trauma. I hope the resolution of this case offers her some sense of justice."

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages; Calls are confidential and toll-free.