Three teenagers tossed a makeshift explosive device on the ground outside a Harlem store as a woman was leaving the shop Thursday, leaving her with a burn mark and other injuries, law enforcement sources tell NBC 4 New York.
Nicole Ramos says she was walking home with groceries when a soda bottle exploded as she walked past it around 7 p.m., and liquid started burning her legs.
“I was just in shock, I just couldn’t believe it, I was just kind of feeling like, ‘What is this?'” Ramos said.
Sources say they’re not sure what kind of chemical was in the bottle, but it didn’t explode immediately. Surveillance video captured teens running away down Lenox Avenue, near the corner of 139th Street.
The green bottle rolled near her and then exploded. The surveillance video shows her looking at her legs and feet, which she says started burning moments later.
She was treated at a hospital for first-degree burns to her calf, among other minor injuries, and released.
“If that liquid would have went into my eye, forget about it,” Ramos said.
Ramos says she’s just glad her 4-year-old child wasn’t with her. She says her message to the people who left the explosive is, “Take science courses. Don’t do that on a crowded street.”
The area around the Lenox Avenue store was closed as authorities investigated. A mark from explosion was still there Friday night.
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