The suicidal man who leaped from his 10th-floor Manhattan apartment — only to be saved by trash piled up after the snowstorm — will likely be left paralyzed, his family said today.
Doctors told the relatives of Vangelos “Angelo” Kapatos, 26, that he will be left with at least some leg paralysis, said his aunt, Katharina Capatos.
“I don’t know if I should believe in a miracle,” said Capatos, who lives a floor below her nephew and spells her name differently. “But he’s going to be paralyzed. That’s what they told us.”
Kapatos remains in a medically-induced coma at Bellevue Hospital and is scheduled to undergo an operation this afternoon to stop internal bleeding in his stomach.
He did not leave a note before attempting suicide from his apartment on West 45th Street in Hell’s Kitchen shortly after noon Sunday. His life was saved when he landed on a mountain of garbage that was not collected because of last week’s blizzard.
Capatos said her nephew was depressed over his parents’ failing health and despondent over their landlord’s efforts to evict him. The man’s ex-girlfriend said Kapatos suffers from mental illness that has been worsened by drug use and excessive drinking.
