She survived a real-life horror story — so Halloween in Gotham City no longer frightens her.
Marion Hedges, the Upper West Side philanthropist who survived being struck by a shopping cart thrown by two teenagers from four stories above, is returning to her old neighborhood 15 years after the random attack that stunned New York City.
On Oct. 30, 2011, Hedges made a last-minute trip to an East Harlem shopping mall to buy candy for underprivileged children invited to her annual Halloween block party. The errand turned into a nightmare when two teenagers hurled a heavy Target shopping cart from a walkway 79 feet above, striking her below.
The married mother of two suffered permanent brain damage, two broken ribs and a broken collarbone. Rescuers had to revive Hedges with CPR after she lost her pulse. She spent four days in a medically induced coma at Harlem Hospital, followed by three years of cognitive therapy.
After first moving to Connecticut and later the Hamptons, the 62-year-old is now heading back to her former neighborhood. She plans to once again focus on improving the lives of at-risk children, including youngsters much like those who nearly killed her.
“I’m very aware of my limitations — but I don’t believe in the word ‘victim,’” Hedges, who lives with severe double vision, defiantly told The Post.
“I refuse to be afraid of home. I have a cane and, believe me, I’m ready to use it if I have to.”
She draws strength from “resilience” and says she “refuses to be a vegetable.”
“I force myself to take those stairs at Grand Central [station], even if it takes me twice as long,” she said proudly.
Hedges also plans to volunteer this Halloween at a children’s party hosted by a community center in the South Bronx.
“Halloween is a fun time — it’s not a time to stay home and hide. I try not to look at it with sadness,” said the former real estate broker, who can no longer drive, shed a tear or read a book because of her impaired vision and attention span.
“I don’t think about what I don’t have — I try not to live a nightmare,” she said.
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The two boys who threw the cart — Raymond Hernandez, then 12, and Jeovanni Rosario, then 13 — pleaded guilty to assault and received what amounted to slaps on the wrist.
Hernandez later continued down a troubled path. In 2015, he was arrested in connection with a string of 14 burglaries.
In 2021, Rosario’s uncle told The Post by phone that the boy had participated in “a couple of programs after that,” but was now “working — he’s doing good,” had avoided trouble and had “stayed clean after that.”
Hedges said she has never heard from either of them, but hopes “their future is not based on one horrible act.”
“It was a bad day for all of us. It damaged their lives and my life forever,” she said.
Her message to the two men is simple: “Move forward. I hope they become parents who will help their children make good decisions.”
Achilles Baskin, a third boy who tried to stop his friends from throwing the cart, eventually turned them in.
Baskin was praised as a hero by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Hedges family. But Hedges said his peers branded him a snitch. In 2023, Baskin was fatally shot in suspected, unrelated drug violence.
Hedges serves on the board of Scan-Harbor, a nonprofit in the Bronx and East Harlem — the same neighborhoods her attackers came from — as her way of helping transform disadvantaged kids’ lives.
Her husband of 35 years, Michael, backs her forgiveness — though he “is afraid of something bad happening” back in NYC. Hedges shot back: “Nothing bad is going to happen to me — it’s already happened to me.
“I don’t want to be afraid of my own city – I don’t want to live in a bubble.”
Hedges also no longer wants to be known as “the shopping cart lady.”
“I want to be known as ‘the shopping cart survivor – making a difference in New York,’” she said.
