Man who confronted Southport attacker says he has not begun to process ‘horror’ of incident

Man stabbed in Southport attack says it is going to take a while to process what he sawSource: BBC Radio 4 Today

Transcript

00:00I was sat at my desk. I didn't immediately get up. But what struck me was the fact that that noise

00:07and shouting didn't abate. And when I did stand up, I saw a group of children, maybe 15 or so,

00:13running away from the building. And it was only then that one of my colleagues shouted or said

00:19words to the effect, there's a girl outside bleeding out. I basically jumped up and ran the

00:25full length of our building. I didn't stop to look out the window to just knew that there was

00:31somebody out there that needed some help. So I ran and opened the door to be confronted by

00:38firstly, a girl on the floor who looked quite badly injured. She had heavily bloodstained

00:44clothing. She was motionless. And then immediately the guy in front of me with

00:52a knife, the knife had blood on it. And the next minute he's coming at me. And then

01:00we had a bit of a grapple might not be the right word. He was flailing this knife around in front

01:06of me and I was trying to get the knife off him. I couldn't tell you at what stage that I realised

01:12I'd been stabbed, but I was stabbed in my upper thigh. How are you now in terms of your injury?

01:19Well, I can't walk. I'm hobbling around on crutches. My wife's doing a stellar job of

01:24looking after me. I will get better. The last couple of days I have sort of start realisation

01:30that I was lucky. I mean, only narrowly missed my femoral artery and I've been told if it caught

01:36that then I probably wouldn't be here. So very grateful that I've, you know, I think the blade

01:43went into my leg 12 centimetres. So it's, it's not what I would call a superficial wound, but I,

01:49there's no reason why I don't think I will make a full recovery. I've not even begun to process the

01:56horror show that I've seen. It's just going to take me a while to process that. So

02:01very much one day at a time.