Worker ‘just went for it’ after sword incident
A Wellington store worker has described the moment aman held a sword at her throat.
Last Tuesday night, Tyla-lee Nelson was working at Hobby House in Wellington’s Dixon St when a man entered the store, approached her and threw one of the shop’s products at her.
‘‘There were so many thoughts going through my head: What is he here for? What is he doing? What does he want? Is he going to try to hurt me?
‘‘I could sense a lot of anger coming from him.’’
While she phoned police, the man disappeared into the store, she said.
‘‘I had no idea what this guy was going to do ... Once I looked back up, I realised I could not see him any more ... I heard all these banging and crashing sounds and immediately knew where he was.
‘‘He was at the Zoro statue [in the store]. When I looked back up, he was striding towards me with the katana.
‘‘Honestly, I thought: Is he actually going to try to kill me?’’
The statue in the store holds four replica katanas (swords), none of which had ever been pulled out, so Nelson was unsure of how sharp they were.
‘‘As he held it out at my throat, the footage makes it look like it lasted all of a split second but, to me, it lasted like a minute, which does not sound long but it felt very, very, very long.’’
Nelson grabbed the end of the sword away from her body and attempted to wrestle it off the man.
‘‘My body just sort of moved on its own when I grabbed it. I guess I was thinking in my head, he is going to try to hurt me with this, I need to try to get it ... I just went for it.
‘‘The tip is sharp and if he wanted to jab me with it, it would have punctured me and done quite a lot of damage.
‘‘As I wrestled there for a minute with the sword and realised I was not going to get it off him, because I was still on the phone to police, I knew the best course of action was just to let go and stand back.’’
The man then threw the sword in the direction of Nelson.
The entire interaction was recorded on the store’s surveillance camera.
The man eventually left the shop minutes later, leaving Nelson feeling like she was going to ‘‘vomit’’.
‘‘My heart was slamming in my
throat, my legs turned to complete jelly, and my hands were shaking.’’
Since the incident, Nelson said she had felt ‘‘dissociated and disconnected’’.
To make matters worse, when she returned to work two days later, she was confronted by a different visitor to the store who verbally abused her.
‘‘He was pointing inmy face really close and it reminded me of the katana [incident]. I just broke down.’’
The store is now considering hiring a security guard.
Nelson said at least ‘‘a couple of times a week’’, staff members were dealing with uncomfortable incidents with people who come into the store.
‘‘People just say: ‘Oh, it just happens when you work between Dixon and Cuba, you have to expect that.’ Well, it is not normal. We are now looking into hiring a security guard, which is silly when you think about it, we are just a retail store,’’ she said.
Police have since arrested a person in relation to the incident.