‘TURN YOURSELF IN’
Victim’s friend pleads with man who threw his pal into traffic to come forward
A friend of a man who was shoved into traffic during an east Vancouver assault is pleading for the attacker to come forward.
“Turn yourself in. It’s the right thing to do,” said Mush, a friend of the injured man, Kash. Both men asked to be identified only by first names.
“Please come forward. Do the right thing. I don’t know how you can live with yourself, knowing that you were watching a guy on the road, possibly dying, and you ran away. … You didn’t know that this guy was going to be a miracle and make a recovery.”
At around 10:30 p.m. on July 15, Mush and Kash left the Logic concert at the PNE Amphitheatre and were on the north sidewalk of East Hastings near Windermere Street when they spotted a young woman who appeared to be intoxicated and alone.
The pair stopped to check on her and, when she said she was fine, they kept walking. Seconds later, a man who had been behind the woman ran toward the men and shoved one of them into traffic.
Kash, 37, was run over by a white SUV. The driver, unsure of what had just happened, pulled over and waited for police. According to police, witnesses tried to hold the attacker at the scene but he and the woman, believed to be friends, fled.
Kash is now in stable condition and his injuries aren’t considered life-threatening.
In a four-second video clip released by police, a vehicle from which the camera was operating can be seen travelling west through the intersection of Hastings and Windermere. As man in black can be seen running toward a pair of men and shoving one, while the other man dodges him.
Kash and Mush spoke to Postmedia on Monday about the attack.
“Once Kash got pushed and hit, everything, for me, just went grey,” said Mush of watching his friend fall into the roadway. He estimates traffic was moving at about 60 kilometres an hour. “That was my best friend there getting run over by a car.”
He said after Kash was run over, he cradled his friend’s head and neck to prevent further injury, while a passerby identified herself as a nurse and helped until paramedics arrived.
Mush called his friend’s family and told them to meet him at Vancouver General Hospital, fearing his friend might not survive the night. Once at VGH, Kash had surgery and doctors determined he had not suffered any injuries to vital organs or his spinal cord.
After Kash’s condition stabilized, he was transferred to another hospital where he remained on Monday.
Speaking by phone, Kash said he only remembers leaving the concert and then waking up in the emergency room hours later.
“Honestly, I’m trying my best just to stay positive and not to think about it,” he said.
Kash has a broken right ankle, a broken right knee, road rash on his right hand and left leg, a fractured shoulder that required two steel plates to repair and a concussion.
He will require hours of physiotherapy before he can walk normally.
“It wasn’t like I went looking for trouble or anything. I was just coming back from a concert, going back home and randomly this happened,” said Kash, who said the support of his friends and family has kept him strong.
Mush said it was a “miracle” that Kash was still alive and would be able to walk again, though there will be emotional and mental trauma.
He said his friend doesn’t drive, choosing to walk and take public transit everywhere. He suspects it will be some time before he is comfortable out on a sidewalk again.
“He doesn’t deserve this. He is the nicest guy you could ever meet,” said Mush.
The attacker was described as a white man in his mid-20s, between 6 feet and 6-2, with a heavy, athletic build. He had short dark hair, dark stubble on his face, and was wearing a black T-shirt and dark shorts.
The suspect’s companion was described as an Asian woman, about 20 to 25 years of age, between 5-foot-2 and 5-foot-4, with a slim build. She had medium-length black hair and was wearing a white tank top or a sundress.