Sometimes you look at an injury and wonder exactly how somebody emerged alive, which is very much the case with Shaun Wayne.

The manager of Soo She restaurant in Strand, 34-year-old Wayne was attacked by two men between Gordon’s Bay and Strand while cycling to work on Monday afternoon.

Sadly, that is hardly big news, but it’s the injury that Wayne sustained, and how he handled it, that has captured the world’s attention.

First up, a warning that the image to follow is pretty graphic.

Before we get to that, we should tell you that Wayne fought off the attackers, who stabbed him in the head with a 15 centimetre blade, and cycled close to a kilometre to his local GP where Dr Brendan Venter, the former Springbok, practices.

OK, time for the image that greeted those at the doctors’ office:

Luckily for Wayne, the knife bent upon impact with the bone, and the blade went down his face along the outside the skull.

Venter, who wasn’t on duty at the time, gave a somewhat surreal description of the incident, as IOL reports:

“One of our female doctors was on duty and she was called to a patient with a knife wound. To say it was dramatic to see him with a knife sticking out of the side of his head was an understatement, but he was very calm and lucid although bleeding a lot.

“He asked very politely if we had a doctor free to see him. The doctor decided that rather than wait for an ambulance, she would drive him to hospital in her car herself and he asked if it was okay to leave his bike with us…

“He was very, very lucky that the blade hit him in the wrong spot to kill him. He fought for his bike back and rode to us as he knew where we were and we are his GP and when he got here, he just walked in and calmly asked for help.

“This is not something that happens every day and it seems it is a violent gang who have struck viciously a few times in the last few weeks and they will be caught.

“It was not even an expensive bike and is one he cycles on to and from work each day. Why they used the level of violence they did is just beyond me.”

Wayne was first taken by car to Hottentots Holland Hospital in Somerset West, and then Tygerberg Hospital in Bellville, where he underwent surgery. A spokesperson said his condition was “stable”, and doctors told his mother that he should make a full recovery.

Perhaps remaining so calm helped Shaun avoid further injury, but the fact remains that his attackers were willing to kill a man in broad daylight for his bike.

This shouldn’t be a reality we have to live with.

[source:iol]