The man allegedly cold-clocked by a convicted sex offender and left fighting for his life in The Bronx was taken off of a ventilator Sunday and appears to be on the mend, loved ones told The Post.
Jesus Cortes, 52, was ventilated and placed in a medically induced coma after pervert Van Phu Bui’s alleged random sucker-punch Aug. 12 left him with a skull fracture, broken cheekbone and bleeding in the brain.
But Sunday morning, doctors were able to take Cortes off the ventilator, and he appears to be making progress, said his brother, Juan Cortes.
“I’m relieved he is off it, but I’m nervous. This is the first big step,” said Juan, who has been keeping vigil at his brother’s bedside since the attack.
”They are watching him for 12 hours to make sure he doesn’t need [the ventilator]. … This is the news I want to hear. Now I have to pray for my brother to be strong and not go back on it,” the sibling said.
So far, “the numbers are good,” doctors told Juan.
”I’m waiting for the good news that he doesn’t have to go back on it. They are checking on him every hour,” Juan said.
“Please God, give my brother the strength to stay off the ventilator,” he added.
Bui, who is on lifetime parole after he was convicted of sexually abusing a minor in the 1990s, was originally charged with attempted murder for the random attack, but prosecutors at the Bronx District Attorney’s Office reduced the rap to misdemeanor assault.
During his arraignment, the 55-year-old was freed on supervised release because his charges weren’t bail eligible. But after public outcry sparked by The Post’s front-page story on the debacle, Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered him to be re-arrested Friday.
During a parole hearing Saturday, Bui’s parole officer, Nixa Rivera, said the charges against the suspect are expected to be upgraded to felonies — as she called him an “imminent threat to the community.”
Bui had allegedly called his parole officer the day of the attack and admitted, “I’m in trouble.
“I hit someone, and he’s in the hospital. I don’t know if he’s dead,” the suspect allegedly said.
“The police are looking for me, I was at the restaurant,” Bui added, according to the criminal complaint against him.
Juan has said Bui should have been charged with a felony from the start. The sibling said he has been despondent since his brother was hospitalized, adding that even their pet birds have stopped singing.
“They can feel my brother is not home. Usually when he comes home, he takes care of them. Now they don’t see him. They don’t make as much noise as before. They miss him,” said the brother.
“I would open the cage, put the music and the tv on, and they would fly around, into the kitchen, the living room. But now they don’t fly around. They stay in the cage.”
