Injured Teen Won't Let Terror Attack Blemish Attendance Record

TRIBECA, NY — A 16-year-old student injured when a terror suspect smashed a truck into a school bus wasn't going to let the ISIS-inspired lunatic blemish his perfect attendance record. Nursing his wounds, the tough teen was back at class the next day.

"He said to me, 'I told myself, I'm going to be fine, there's a lot of people who want to help me,'" Fariña recalled outside Stuyvesant High School Thursday.

She didn't name the boy or the school he attends or describe his injuries, but said his spirit was shared among New York City's school students, many of whom saw accused terrorist Sayfullo Saipov speed a pickup truck up a cycle path on the West Side of Manhattan, leaving mangled bodies in his wake.

He killed eight and left 12 injured, officials said.

Most students at Stuyvesant High School, which is a block from where the suspect crashed, and at three other nearby city schools were back in class the next day, undeterred by the terrorist strike, officials said Thursday.

Students at Stuyvesant, PS 89, IS 289 and an unnamed fourth school — whose students the bus was carrying — sheltered in place Tuesday afternoon, mostly going about their business amid the panic outside, city officials said.

Inspired by ISIS, Saipov is accused of targeting pedestrians and cyclists as he drove about three quarters of a mile down the Hudson River Greenway before hitting the school bus at Chambers Street, law enforcement officials say. He exited the truck holding a paintball gun and a bb weapon and was shot and injured by a cop.

Among the injured were two students, a staff member and the driver who were on the bus, Fariña said. The driver is at home, and the staff member and one student are recovering from surgery, she said.

A Stuyvesant High teacher was hurt on the bike path but returned to school the next day, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

The mayor said he decided to keep the schools open Wednesday to prove that the worst terror attack since 9/11 wouldn't disrupt life in New York. Attendance at all four buildings was high the next day despite students having the option of a day off, Fariña said.

The mayor said one student told him they "saw it as their duty" to go to class Wednesday.

"I think that's an amazing thing, to hear kids still in their teens thinking about their responsibility to respond to an act of terror," de Blasio said.

Aside from the TV cameras and cops, it seemed like a normal school day Thursday outside Stuyvesant, the city's most elite public high school. Some students were out and about around lunchtime as cyclists rode the greenway that Saipov is accused of terrorizing just two days earlier.

De Blasio and Fariña met with teachers and staff and visited a government class at Stuyvesant Thursday morning.

Officials praised the schools for following the procedures to keep kids safe. Staff members locked the front doors and cordoned off the schools, keeping kids inside and everyone else out, officials said.

"We're going to be OK, because there are always going to be people and groups of people who are going to be there to help us," Fariña said.

(Lead image: Students enter Stuyvesant High School in 2015. The elite public high school is one of four near the scene of Tuesday's Tribeca terror attack. Photo by Mark Lennihan/Associated Press)