Brooklyn subway shooting: Update on victims including several children

Brooklyn subway shooting victims

Dozens of people are hurt following the shooting aboard a subway train in Sunset Park. Several of the victims, including children, were hospitalized with gunshot wounds, smoke inhalation and shrapnel injuries.

NEW YORK - What would typically be a quiet Tuesday morning commute turned into a tragedy for families and students simply trying to get to work or school.

At a Tuesday press briefing, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Maimonides Medical Center began receiving calls and taking in patients as early as 8:45.

"At this hospital, they're dealing with young people. There was a 12-year-old, there was a 13-year-old, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old who arrived this morning," said Hochul.

More than two-dozen people were injured after the gunman opened fire on a rush-hour subway. Ten victims were shot, including an 18-year-old student at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Search for Frank James

Police are looking for Frank James, 62, with known addresses in Wisconsin and Philadelphia. He is a "person of interest" in connection with the shooting aboard an N train and subway station platform after opening up two smoke grenades.

"He was on his way to school, and he was awaiting his surgery on an injury," Hochul added.

A 16-year-old boy is recovering from hand surgery. Dr. Jack Choeuka, a hand surgeon at Maimonides Medical Center, explained the procedure. He says doctors were able to salvage the boy’s thumb.

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"He had a gunshot wound to the hand, it was a pretty devastating injury to the thumb and it destroyed a lot of the bone, the joint, the tendons, the nerves," Dr. Choeuka told reporters.

"His mother does not speak English, she is Chinese, she is there alone," Hochul added.

Brooklyn subway shooting: Numerous victims treated

Maimonides Health in Brooklyn treated five victims of the mass shooting. These victims -- who are 12, 13, 15, 16, and 18 -- were on their way to school when a gunman shot them on the subway.

Victims were also taken to NYU Langone Hospital’s Brooklyn campus and New York-Presbyterian Methodist Hospital. Many of them were treated there for smoke inhalation.

Kenneth Foote-Smith, who was riding the subway during the attack, saw the chaos unfold through a connecting door.

"So, I look into it and I see smoke. Thick white smoke, so it's not gun smoke, I knew immediately, I'm like, that's not a gun going off in there," he recalled.

Foote-Smith was able to escape unharmed.

Brooklyn subway shooting investigation

Police have towed away a U-Haul van that could be linked to the mass shooting in a subway train in Brooklyn. The NYPD said a man named Frank James rented the van in Philadelphia. Police are calling him a "person of interest."

Perhaps another faint silver lining is that none of the injuries appear to be life-threatening.

"We were prepared to care for twenty, thirty, patients if we needed to. Fortunately, we only have five. Three of the children were in really good shape and were able to be discharged," Dr. John Marshall, Chair of Maimonides Hospital’s Department Emergency Medicine said.