A 28-year-old man was in critical condition at one point after he was shoved down a set of stairs at the Jimbocho subway station at the end of a pursuit of a suspected groper on Feb. 17 in Tokyo.
Although he regained consciousness the following day, he has been in the hospital because of skull fractures and other injuries.
As his wife prays for his recovery, messages of encouragement and praise for the man's courageous act keep showing up on her Twitter account.
"I think my husband acted out of a sense of justice. As for the assailant who pushed him down, I can never forgive what he did," his weeping wife told The Yomiuri Shimbun.
The incident occurred at about 7 a.m. on Feb. 17. A woman aboard a train on the Toei Shinjuku Line claimed she had been groped, and the 52-year-old suspect, former police officer Masao Shinada, darted out of the train while it was stopped at the station.
The good Samaritan, who was on his way to work, chased Shinada, and the two engaged in a scuffle on the stairs. Shinada was later arrested on suspicion of assault for shoving the man, who fell about 2 meters.
It was about an hour later when the hospital that admitted the man telephoned his wife. She rushed to the facility, where she saw her husband with a tube in his mouth and blood coming from his head and ears.
A digital image showed part of his skull appeared to be shattered.
"What will become of my husband?" she thought. During his operation, which lasted about 4-1/2 hours, she was almost crushed because of the anxiety.
The couple celebrated their second wedding anniversary three days before the incident. They had been putting off having a wedding ceremony, but were discussing holding it this summer.
The wife turned to Twitter, which she does not usually use, to share some thoughts she contain inside.
She wrote among her tweets: "My husband chased a groper at a station and fell from the stairs after being pushed down. When I arrived at [the hospital], I was told things were at their worst.
"Good deeds aren't rewarded in this world. My tears just won't stop."
Her posts quickly spread on the internet. She then received a series of messages such as "I admire your husband for his courageous act," and "I pray from my heart for his recovery."
A woman who said she had been molested wrote: "The presence of a person like your husband is a relief."
His wife has been encouraged by people whom she has never met.
Suspect is former law-enforcement
The day following the incident, her husband regained consciousness. He was experiencing a splitting headache and frowned in the middle of their conversations.
But when he saw messages on Twitter, he was moved to tears. Her posts have had about 90,000 retweets and more than 290,000 likes.
Her husband was reportedly the only one who was able to catch up with Shinada on the stairs after a station employee and a high school boy tried but failed to run down the suspect, who got off the train in an attempt to escape.
According to the Metropolitan Police Department, Shinada denied the alleged assault, reportedly telling investigators, "I just brushed away his arm."
The suspect also denied the groping allegation. However, he was once disciplined in July 2007 as an MPD officer for pushing a man who had accused him of groping at a station. The MPD plans to probe deeper into the latest incident.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
