Throat slashed in 'race' attack
Maria Lewis
June 1st, 2009
WITH dried blood in his hair and 11 stitches across his throat Gold Coaster Jack Donnelly considers himself lucky.
The Surfers Paradise local was the victim of a 'racially motivated' attack on Saturday night while walking home from the Blues on Broadbeach festivities.
Mr Donnelly contacted the Gold Coast Bulletin yesterday hours after being rushed to Gold Coast Hospital for treatment.
Mr Donnelly, who has a prosthetic leg, noticed he was being said he was followed by a group of men who he described as of 'Asian appearance'.
"They came up and knocked me to the ground and started kicking me," he said.
"They were yelling 'piss off Aussie' and 'good on ya Skippy'.
"I managed to get back up and I thought I got away from them."
Mr Donnelly said the next thing he knew the group of about four or five, aged in their mid-20s, had approached him in a dark section of his street brandishing a broken bottle.
"They slashed my throat with the bottle and ran away once they saw how much blood was coming out," he said.
The 40-year-old managed to get home where he attempted to raise the alarm before passing out on a mattress in the lounge room, possibly as a result of the considerable blood loss.
When his sister Peta, who is also his housemate, woke at 6am to find her brother in a pool of his own blood, she immediately called an ambulance.
"I thought he was dead," she said.
"I started shaking and I didn't know who to call because there was so much blood.
"I kept pressure on the wound until the ambulance and police arrived with an intensive care paramedic because it was so serious.
"He was in and out of consciousness and saying 'they cut my throat'."
Mr Donnelly was treated for shock in the emergency ward of Gold Coast Hospital where he also received 11 stitches to the wound to his throat.
After giving him a thorough examination, doctors said the laceration across his throat was just millimetres from his jugular vein -- any closer and he wouldn't have survived.
While recovering in his apartment last night, Mr Donnelly told The Bulletin said he was enraged at the 'cowardly attack'.
"If they read this in the paper, tell them I'm going to get them," he said. "It's lucky it happened to me.
"Next time they'll probably do it to a younger bloke and they might kick them until they're dead.
"Where there's paradise there's also people like this."
Police are appealing for anyone who may have witnessed suspicious activity in the area or seen the assault to contact their local police or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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