Good Luck? Pity? Who Knows?

I’m sure the mugger feels much better about his place in the universe now that he’s been koaned by the Post:

A crackhead mugger nearly choked a woman to death in the vestibule of her Harlem building last fall — but wound up saving her life.

Jennifer Chow, 30, who works at an arts group, was put in a headlock and choked until she passed out on Oct. 1. She woke up without her purse.

Even though she felt only slight pain in her neck, responding cops and medics convinced her to go to the hospital. The checkup found Chow had thyroid cancer.

“If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have discovered the cancer so early, if at all,” said Chow, who was declared cancer-free just two weeks ago.

Following the harrowing brush with death at the hands of her attacker, a CAT scan of her neck at North General Hospital revealed the small mass on her thyroid.

“The doctor said, ‘You’ll be fine, except you have this nodule that the radiologist said you should get checked out,’ ” Chow recalled.

Follow-ups with a doctor and pathologist revealed the worst: Chow was diagnosed with papillary carcinoma, a cancerous mass on thyroid tissue.

In December, a surgeon removed the cancerous tissue. Mount Sinai endocrinologist Dr. Richard Haber last month determined the cancer had been eradicated, though Chow must take medication for life.

“It probably would have been bad if I had not been mugged,” she said. “It would have gotten to me much later and in a larger state.”