// January 19th, 2005 // 10 Comments » // General
What goes through your mind when you wake up in the middle of the night, with two silhouettes standing in your bedroom? This was the scene I was faced with last week at 02:40am on Thursday. Your first reaction is, am I dreaming or is this real? Do you react or do you keep motionless not to alarm the perpetrators?
The only way for me to know if this was real was to yell and get up to get distance between my perceived assailants and me. Now if ever you were into adventure sports and adrenaline is your thing, screaming and actually hearing your voice with the realisation that this situation was real makes for a rush like no other.
I guess I watched too many episodes of Alias, 24 and CSI because what happened next would probably make for an interesting action sequence in a movie or TV series.
My sudden movement and subsequent scream, alarmed the two attackers who reacted by attempting to pin me to the bed. In true Jean Claude van Damme style I kicked and punched like a prizefighter. In the scuffle that ensued, I managed to get up from my bed and flog off the two to get out the bedroom.
At the kitchen area I realised that all the doors were still locked and the knives were just too far away, so the next best thing was to grab a barstool. Under normal situations a barstool is not the lightest thing to pick up to defend yourself with, but with the strength of Samson, the stool became a bat, and an effective one no less.
The attackers came after me and got slightly more than they bargained for in the pitch-black dark house. Barstool flying through the air like I was Pollock on strike I knocked the beanie straight off the guy’s head. The other got a bash against the arm and shoulder, which disabled them long enough to get past back to the bedroom to jump out the window.
Yanking the curtain away, and to my surprise, a third attacker was trying to get through the window, obviously on his way to aid his buddies. Bad move for him. Still with barstool in hand, I knocked him on his chest so he fell backwards out the window and down the grassy slope.
With nothing to defend myself with, I picked up another chair from my patio, which promptly found the back of the third guy who eventually came after me. He bailed, just as the other two jumped out the window.
Things got a bit tricky when the one guy fired his weapon into the air. Now I’m not much of a betting man, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out what would happen next. I bailed, still with patio chair in hand, towards the security booth to wake up the security guards who were peacefully unaware of what was happening.
Within 30 seconds of radioing for response, the armed security company arrived and approximately 3 minutes later followed by the police. The attackers unfortunately got away with some items, but thank goodness my life still intact. The rest of the complex came to investigate, who were woken up the commotion, the shot and the deafening silence that followed.
While the police were taking down my statement, the one officer noticed some blood seeping through my shirt. As I lifted my shirt to check, I heard some gasps from the people standing around. I never knew it, but it turns out that I was stabbed 7 times during the scuffle with my assailants (pictures below). The adrenaline pumping through my veins barred me from feeling anything during the ordeal. The police officers immediately called an ambulance service on the assumption that two of my wounds looked suspiciously like a bullet’s entry and exit points. Fortunately for me it was not a gunshot wound.
An antitetanus injection, 16 stitches, 2 x-rays and a couple of bruises later I was discharged from hospital, thanking God that I’m still alive.
Oh, I failed to mention one thing – though the whole ordeal I was starkers. Since it was quite hot that evening and not being a man to restrict his crown jewels in boxers all night, yours truly was sleeping in the buff. Now that might have been the reason why the attackers got a fright in the first place, or the reason why the female population of our complex is beating down my door to see if everything is okay. Either way, seeing a naked white guy running around the complex, covered in blood and still wielding a patio chair is apparently a sight to behold. Note to self, wear boxers next time to bed.
I’ve gone to a few sessions of trauma counselling, just to keep the mind in check, but otherwise the prognosis is that I’m going to be fine. Thanks for everyone’s support and get-well messages thus far.
For the Jo’blog guys the photographic evidence is here.
