Ex-city bus driver Oneshia Shade (in an earlier photo above) says she needed psychiatric help after being spat upon two years ago.

Roca/NewsOneshia Shade

Spitting hurts!

An ex-city bus driver who took five months sick leave after a rider spat on her insisted Tuesday she needed the recovery time after the harrowing - and gross - attack.

"I needed the help of psychiatrists in order for me to regain some sort of composure to be able to deal with people," Oneshia Shade said. "I felt extremely vulnerable."

Shade defended the practice after the MTA revealed that dozens of bus drivers took an average 64 paid days off last year after getting hit with spit.

One even took 191 days, officials said. 

Stung by criticism from MTA board members, NYC Transit said yesterday it plans to give some cases extra scrutiny.

"The cases that seem to be extreme, we're going to go back and look at them and see if there are incidents of abuse," said Joe Smith, NYC Transit vice president of buses.

The drivers are paid through the state workers' compensation program, with NYC Transit picking up some of the tab, officials said.

"We realize not all of the [cases] are unwarranted, but some may be," an agency spokesman said.

Shade was spat on nearly two years ago in the Bronx by a rider angry about delays.

She said she was struck on the cheek and in the eye - and she immediately started worrying that she would catch a disease.

Shade said she still gets tested regularly.

Reports of spitting at bus drivers are on the rise. There were 88 incidents last year, up from 67 the prior year, according to revised numbers released by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority yesterday.

Last year, 49 victims took time off, while 25 took time off the prior year. The number of days off more than doubled to 3,024 from 1,443, according to officials.

It's unclear if more people are spitting or jumpier drivers are reporting more incidents after the December 2008 stabbing death of a driver, officials said.

Shade said the spitting attack was the second time she was assaulted on duty and it brought up memories of a bloodier attack. 

In 2001, two teenage girls stabbed Shade - then six months pregnant - in what cops suspected was part of a gang initiation, she said.

"The fact that I was assaulted a second time on a bus made me feel extremely vulnerable," she said. "I felt unsafe. It's nerve-racking. Just talking about it brings back that fear. You relive the event."

Shade's unborn daughter wasn't injured in the stabbing, but was born premature and required physical therapy, Shade said. The culprits were never captured, raising the possibility that Shade again could encounter them at a bus stop in the future, she said.

"Most victims don't return to the scene of the crime," she said. "But for bus operators, it's different."

Two years after the stabbing, Shade was fired in a dispute with the MTA over her leave. A legal battle dragged on until June 2007, when NYC Transit settled the case and allowed Shade to return to work, she said. In December, she moved to a union position on the West Side of Manhattan.

A NYC Transit spokesman declined to comment.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/05/26/2010-05-26_feeling_extremely_vulnerable_she_took_five_months_to_recover_i_needed_my_sick_le.html#ixzz0p46MpBBD