The 23-year-old woman, named locally as Sian Green, was undergoing surgery to save her other leg following the accident near the Rockefeller Centre on Sixth Avenue, in midtown Manhattan.
She was visiting New York from England with a friend, with whom she was walking and eating hot-dogs as the taxi struck. The driver was said to have claimed he swerved to avoid a cyclist.
Dozens of passersby promptly came to the woman's aid including Mohamed Elsayed, a 34-year-old food seller on the same square, who rushed over with a cooler full of ice with which to pack the woman's severed left leg.
"It was a terrible scene," he told The Daily Telegraph. "She was thrown into the bushes. She was screaming. Most of her leg was just there on the sidewalk, underneath the cab. We did all we could to help". » | Jon Swaine, New York | Tuesday, August 20, 2013
