She gave him the finger!
A woman from Manhattan who reached out to pet an NYPD ended up losing part of her right ring finger after the beast bit off the top of her right ring finger.
The incident, which happened in November of last year is now the subject of a lawsuit between Pernilla Ekberg and the city, whom she is now suing.
Ms Ekberg claims the mounted officer gave her the ‘ok’ to touch his horse before the animal bit the tip off her finger, thinking it was a delicious carrot.
The Swedish-born 28-year-old was outside the popular Lower East Side bar Max Fish with friends when the unexpected attack happened around 2:30 a.m.
‘She gently touched it once, and it bit her,’ Ekberg’s lawyer, Eliot Bickoff, told The Post.
‘The horse chomped down on her hand, bit her finger and spat it on the floor. Her boyfriend picked it up, packed it on ice and took her to the hospital,’ Mr Bickoff said.
The police officer panicked and ‘rode off without filing any sort of incident report or asking her if she needed medical help,’he continued.
In the moments prior to the biting incident, the hungry horse had been calm as other people approached the equine and patted it.Part of her finger then had to be amputated, and she endured weeks of surgeries and physical therapy to regain some of the use and sensation, the lawsuit says.
Ms. Ekberg apparently has nerve damage and has had to spend months in intensive rehab working to restore her fine motor skills which are still impaired.
She needs her full right hand to type, hold a pen, interact with people and all of that has been affected by losing the tip of her ring finger, the lawyer said to the Daily News.
‘It affects her ability to type at the office,’ said Bickoff, whose client works for the data technology firm Xaxis.
‘The NYPD are meant to protect the citizens of New York and when their actions and the actions of their police horses injure those citizens, the NYPD must beheld responsible for that negligent conduct,’ Ms. Ekberg’s lawyer said.
City officials have so far refused to comment on the incident.
