D Train Nightmare: Screaming Woman Throws a Bunch of Bugs at Subway Passengers

UPDATE: Well, it appears to all be an act — at least to some degree. The bugs were very real, and the pulling of the emergency break wasn't planned, but it emerged late on Friday that the "homeless woman" was actually an actress named Zaida Pugh, and many of the people on the train were actually her friends. The prank was meant to teach people a lesson about how the public treats mentally ill people.

Pugh might be facing charges for the mayhem she caused, police sources told the New York Daily News. Pugh apologized for her prank to the Gothamist on Sunday.

"I'm sorry about the situation and hope not to be be involved in anything like that," she said, commenting on potential charges.

ORIGINAL STORY

MANHATTAN BRIDGE, NY — It's a New York City nightmare for the ages. A witness account — and accompanying video — posted to Facebook on Wednesday night by people's hero John Ray tells the terrifying tale of a D Train rider who was, understandably, having some trouble selling her collection of crickets and worms to fellow passengers. So, when someone on the southbound train punched her in the face, Ray said, she snapped — screaming, flailing, peeing her pants and, most terrifyingly of all, throwing hundreds of bugs all over the subway car.

Then someone pulled the emergency break.

"Crickets everywhere and 100 people were trying to run," Ray wrote on Facebook. "To where? People crammed into one end of the train. The air conditioning shut off. She was freaking out because she couldn't breathe because she was in such a state and there was no air."

The rush-hour D Train was halted on Manhattan Bridge for a half an hour while commuters struggled to escape the creepy crawlies and brush them off their bodies, the New York Post reported.

Meanwhile, a few brave passengers tried to hold the woman down — who was, by this time, urinating, yelling and attempting to throw up on them, witnesses told the Post.

“It was pandemonium,” witness Chris Calabrese, 29, told the Post. “It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen on a train.”

The NYPD was not able to confirm witness accounts of Wednesday's terrifying incident on the D Train.

Photo by Takeaway/Wikimedia Commons