Perth mum speaks after she and her son were caught in horror New York taxi crash

An Australian mum has spoken for the first time after she and her son were hospitalised when a taxi mounted the kerb and hit tourists in Manhattan.

An Australian mum who was injured along with her son when at taxi crashed into pedestrians in the heart of New York City has spoken of the “horrific” ordeal.

Rebecca Stewart, from Perth, and her son, Tyler, 9, were heading to dinner on Christmas Day afternoon when they strolled past the iconic Macy’s department store on 34th street in Midtown Manhattan.

A taxi cab then mounted the kerb and injured six pedestrians on the busy shopping strip, including the Stewarts.

“I just felt this massive impact behind me and then the next thing I knew I was face down on the pavement,” Ms Stewart told 7News.

Rebecca Stewart and her nine-year-old son Tyler. Credit: 7NEWS

“I was holding my son’s hand, I could just hear him screaming.”

The pair were pinned beneath the car with taxis wheels still spinning,

“I could hear my husband screaming, just asking everyone to get the car off us. It was pretty horrific.”

An eyewitness told CBS News the boy’s leg was trapped underneath a tyre of the vehicle which was moving.

Multiple pedestrians struck by a New York City Taxi at West 34th Street and Sixth Avenue in the Herald Square section of Manhattan, New York. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Footage of the rescue has since been shared to social media showing other pedestrians rushing to free the injured and lift the vehicle off the pedestrians.

“A gentleman got the car off and then we ripped the fender (bumper) off, kind of lifted it back,” one onlooker said, which enabled Tyler to be moved.

The incident happened outside Macy's Herald Square flagship store in New York City. (Photo by David Dee Delgado / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

The boy was admitted to hospital with burns and a de-gloving injury, where the skin is peeled off, from the spinning tyre, reported 7News.

He has two operations and will need a skin graft.

“I don’t know how we survived to be honest,” Ms Stewart said.

The driver of the cab is believed to have suffered a medical episode and veered onto the kerb and at Herald Square. No arrest have been made.

The area, next to the Empire State Building, is a magnet for tourists. As well as Macy’s, it has Christmas markets, other major retailers, a large Subway interchange and is close to the Madison Square Garden sports arena and Penn railway station.