Quick-thinking police officers may have saved a Winnipeg man’s life early Monday morning, after the man was the victim of an unprovoked machete attack.
Police said the man was found in the street near Pembina Highway and Dudley Avenue just before 5 a.m., in shock and bleeding badly from a severe laceration to his leg.
Because the man was losing a significant amount of blood, the officers quickly applied a police-issued tourniquet to stop the bleeding until emergency personnel arrived. The victim was taken to hospital in unstable condition but has since been upgraded to stable.
Police said the man was walking toward downtown when two suspects – a man and a woman – attacked him without warning and then walked away.
One Manitoba criminologist says while random attacks like these are extremely rare, they are on the rise in Winnipeg.
“Generally we think it’s due to an increase in the use of certain drugs, particularly methamphetamine, that causes people to behave in very erratic ways and commit violent or criminal acts that seemingly have no sort of rational basis whatsoever,” University of Manitoba criminologist Frank Cormier said.
The male suspect is described is in his mid-20s with short black hair and a tattoo on his cheek.
The Major Crimes Unit continues to investigate, and anyone with information that might help investigators is asked to call police at 204-986-6219 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-TIPS.