A Winnipeg man is recovering from a serious eye injury after he saved a homeless man from being assaulted by two men.
Doug Thomas was ordering food at a drive-thru restaurant when he says he saw a homeless man being harassed and then attacked at a bus shelter near Portage Avenue, early Saturday morning.
“They were kicking him and, at that point, I screamed and I just instinctively jumped out of the car and ran there,” he told CTV Winnipeg.
Thomas said he tried to pull the young men away from the victim but they then started focusing on him and began punching his head, with one even using his nails to rip at his eye.
“His nails went straight into my eye and tore my eyelid so my eyelid is all tore it's hanging out,” Thomas said, adding that there was blood all over his eye.
He said the two men fled after assaulting him and noticed that the homeless man only suffered a few scratches. Thomas wasn’t as fortunate.
Thomas said his tear duct was torn and he had suffered scratches on his eye. A CT scan showed that the eyeball was still intact.
Thomas has been fitted with a protective piece covering his eye socket to allow the area to heal properly. He is also nursing bruises on his head and hand.
But despite suffering serious injuries, he says wouldn’t change stepping in to help.
“If that was me and someone was kicking me like that I would want someone to intervene,” he said. ”I would do it all over again. I don't regret it at all.”
Thomas hopes that that the two men are caught soon.
Winnipeg police say that detectives are working on the case but that no suspects have been caught yet, as the investigation is still in its early stages.
With a report from CTV Winnipeg’s Beth Macdonell
