Paramedics relive horror of stab attack by patient
Ambulance workers were off work with trauma for months
TWO paramedics have relived the moment they were stabbed by a patient they were attendting to in Wolverhampton.
Deena Evans feared for her life after she was attacked with a kitchen knife by Martyn Smith at his home in Stephens Close on July 6 last year.
Her crewmate, Mick Hipgrave, was stabbed in the back by the 52-yearold.
Ms Evans spent three days in hospital following surgery for a punctured lung, while Mr Hipgrave was discharged the same day.
The pair spent months off work for both their physical and mental recovery.
Although the incident lasted 12 seconds – from the moment the paramedics entered the property, to Smith being tasered – it’s something the pair will never forget.
“He ran out from the kitchen door with an eight inch knife in each hand and just ran at me,” Ms Evans said.
“I went backwards, Mick pushed me out the way and stood in front of me and I felt him lunge forward,
obviously where he’d been stabbed in the back. “I remember taking a step back and thinking ‘my uniform is really wet and sticky’.
“I had gloves on and as I patted myself down, looked at my gloves and realised I was bleeding from somewhere. I started to check under my shirt and I saw the wound and it was just pouring out.
“I put my hand on my chest to stem it and shouted ‘I’ve been stabbed, I’ve been stabbed’ and then I said ‘I’m bleeding out’ as I couldn’t stop the blood. I remember looking down and seeing the blood coming through my fingers.
“I couldn’t breathe. We pressed our buttons to control and there was so much noise and so much commotion, we didn’t think we’d been heard. I ran into the garden and that’s where I collapsed. A female officer was with me and I said to her ‘please don’t let me die, I’ve got three children’.
“I was gripping onto her uniform and she kept saying ‘I’m sorry, you’re not going to die, I won’t let you die’.”
“I still can’t get my head around it,” Mr Hipgrave added. “It was completely unexpected and unprovoked.
It’s still a bit of a shock. I still relive that day many, many times every week.”
Smith was jailed for nine years after pleading guilty to two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
In a victim impact statement to court, Ms Evans said: “Your sentence will not give me back the year I lost, neither will it take away my painful and ugly scar, or the mental stress you caused. However, hopefully your sentence will be enough to act as a deterrent to others who think it is okay to attack other emergency services, when they have made a choice to simply do a job.”