Brooklyn subway shooting: Update on victims including several children

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.

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"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.

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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.

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"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.

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.