Jay Reist, a Columbia graduate student, went out to catch up with an old friend Thursday night. It ended up with him fighting for his life a week later in an ICU.  

“I texted him at 5 a.m. I texted him at 7 a.m. I got no answer,” Louise Reist, his mother, said.

What You Need To Know

• Family and friends of Jay Reist are searching for answers how he ended up in an ICU 


• There's a gap of a little over an hour in the early morning hours of July 22 when he is not seen on surveillance cameras in Manhattan


• He started having seizures in an Uber after coming out of a subway station by 15th St. and 8th Ave.


• Police are investigating and have not said what happened, or what they believe happened, to Reist at this time

Friday morning after he didn’t come home, she called him a few hours later. Louise said her son didn’t pick up the phone, but a nurse did.   

“Found out he was in the ICU here,” she said. He has been on life support at Milstein Hospital with severe brain trauma.

Louise and some of Jay’s friends have been at the hospital as often as they can ever since.

“I and the rest of the community at Columbia are immensely distraught over this,” George, one of his classmates at Columbia, said.

It’s a mystery about how Reist ended up in the hospital.  

Louise said police told her he was seen on surveillance leaving a bar on 10th St. and Avenue B around 1 a.m. A little after 2 a.m., he was seen on surveillance at 15th St. and 8th Ave. after getting out of the subway station, police said.

Louise said he looked disheveled getting into an Uber to go home in the video. He started having seizures while getting into the Uber.

The Uber driver called 911 and took him to a nearby hospital.  

“He was sedated. On a breathing tube,” Louise said.

She said the major blows to his head are to the back and on top, which is why she believes someone attacked her son.

Family friends said they’re afraid someone may have targeted Jay because he identifies as queer.

A GoFundMe page, which is already over $70,000, was created to help raise money for thw possible long recovery for Jay.

Police haven’t said why and how Jay ended up severely injured, nor what could have caused it.  

Call the police at 212-927-0447 if you know any details.