Man seeks paramedic saviours from his 1994 Ottawa stabbing
Dave Murphy can still recall the two young paramedics hovering over him as he nearly bled to death after being stabbed 13 times in Ottawa 27 years ago.
He'd been attacked by three assailants outside the Ottawa-area Bayshore Shopping Centre on March 28, 1994, but to this day doesn't know why.
“I can remember them cutting off my brand-new coat and my jeans to get to the wounds,” said Calgarian Murphy, 45.
“I would have bled out in six minutes if they hadn't gotten there.”
The trauma from the attack sent him into a years-long spiral of mental and physical misery — challenges that Murphy says he's gradually overcome.
He's largely conquered the post-traumatic stress from his near-death experience and has shed 162 pounds of weight he gained in its aftermath.
But one quest that he began five years ago — to find and thank the paramedics who saved his life; one male, the other female — has yet to be fulfilled.
“I just want to close it and meet them — probably now at first on Zoom, have a Zoom beer with them,” said Murphy.
“They'd probably be in their 60s and retired.”
One of the first responders, he said, also saved his left leg by applying emergency care and “holding it together.”
“I lost half the muscle in my leg … the surgeon told me I'd never be able to walk, or at least run, again.”
Murphy also suffered a puncture wound to a lung and another that narrowly missed his heart.
Gratitude for those who ensured he survived has led him to contact various government and first-responders agencies in Ontario in the search for his saviours.
He was told an Ottawa paramedics database no longer exists and was told by the Ontario Ministry of Health that they don't provide that information.
“I did have a retired firefighter contact me and tell me he was looking into it for me,” said Murphy.
So far, all of his attempts to track down the paramedics have proven futile.
But finding police officers who worked his case and eventually brought his assailants to justice did bear fruit.
One retired officer, Paul, said he was heartened to hear from Murphy.
“We rarely have an opportunity to see victims or even assailants put their lives back together, as so much time passes and we lose contact after the court proceedings,” he said in a written message to Murphy.
“In the final analysis I look fondly back on those moments of thanks and gratitude more than the case itself.”
Retired Ottawa Police supt. Tim Armour said, “The stabbing in 1994 at Bayshore was a life-altering experience and it is great to hear how he has motivated himself to better health and is impacting so many first responders and our heroes in the Canadian Armed Forces.”
Murphy said he's been returning the favour of his own survival by helping raise money for first responders and members of Canada's military, including an effort that collected $100,000 to cover coffee and snacks for the country's troops in Afghanistan.
A smaller but similar effort was made for emergency crews during southern Alberta's devastating 2013 floods, while still more was donated to first responders for each pound he shed, he said.
“Until I can meet those paramedics, I'm paying it forward this way,” he said.
I just want to
... meet them — probably now at first on Zoom, have a Zoom beer with them. They'd probably be in their 60s.