WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES – Elderly man is stabbed 18 times by hitchhiker
MBOMBELA – An 86-year-old good Samaritan was brutally assaulted and left for dead by a black hitchhiker he had picked up minutes earlier.
Mr Robert “Pat” Paterson gave a young man a lift on the Mabalel/Uitkyk Road last Thursday, only to be stabbed 18 times in the face and neck with an awl. He was discharged from hospital on Monday following a number of surgeries to his wounds.
The attack occurred at 14:30. Paterson said he often picked up hitchhikers on that dirt road since very few vehicles drive by. “I saw a young man standing next to the road. He looked very respectable and it was in broad daylight, so I decided to give him a lift. I had hardly pulled away when he grabbed my hand from the steering wheel and started beating me,” Paterson recalled.
I asked him what he was doing, but he didn’t say a word. He then pulled out a tool which is normally used to lace American footballs and stabbed me with it.
Paterson sustained a number of serious stab wounds to his face and neck – 18 wounds in total. “He missed my main artery by a few millimetres.”
According to Paterson, the suspect told him to hand over the car keys, but Paterson had dropped them on the floor of the car. “I told him I didn’t know where they were, but he just carried on hitting and stabbing me. He got out of the car, flung open my door and searched for it himself.”
Paterson recalled a few vehicles driving by. “I waved at all of them but no one stopped. After a few terrifying minutes, a man stopped and the hitchhiker fled. The man said he was from the police dog unit. He applied pressure to the severe wound in my neck and phoned an ambulance.”
The man was WO Danie Theron of White River K9 Unit, who is also a resident on the Uitkyk Road. “I was patrolling the area like I usually do when I saw the small car parked on the right side of the road,” Theron said. “I saw the driver’s window was open and the passenger seat was reclined.
Only when I drove past did I see the shivering, bleeding hand protruding from the window. I stopped and opened the door and my first awareness was the intense smell of blood. The old man was bleeding so profusely that I thought he had been shot at first.
Theron applied pressure to the deep gash in Paterson’s neck and phoned the ambulance, which arrived within minutes. Paterson said he owes his life to Theron. “I probably would have died if he hadn’t stoped to help me,” he said.
While Paterson was transported to Mediclinic Nelspruit, Theron returned to the scene to search for the suspect.
He found the attacker’s light-blue jacket, with the weapon inside, about 200 metres from where the incident took place, but there was no sign of him.
Paterson is currently recovering at home. “Never in my life will I pick up another hitchhiker,” Paterson said. “Never ever.”
http://lowvelder.co.za/292038/elderly-man-is-stabbed-18-times-by-hitchhiker/Also read:
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ATTACK: Pensioner assaulted with iron pipe after he offered a black hitchhiker a ride on a deserted farm road near Nelspruit
ATTACK: Seriously Injured: Elderly man, Pat Paterson (86) was brutally assaulted with a iron pipe and stabbed in the face with a sharp object after he offered a black hitchhiker a ride on a deserted farm road, 12 km from Nelspruit.NOTHING WAS ROBBED
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