“It’s something I’ve never experienced in my life – something you see on TV. And when you see it in person, it’s just shocking,” Julia Jean told CBC in an interview on Sunday. Jean, 26, and her husband, Jorge Torres, 32, went for a drive with a friend around 10:30 p.m. on Friday night when they were confronted shortly after the attack, which she said left a 22-year-old man with a knife. wound to his neck and his 23-year-old friend was hit by pepper spray. Torres said the stabbed man was walking down the street, holding his neck, and saw that he was bleeding. “She was screaming that she needed help. Like, ‘I need help. I need help,” Torres said. Jean called 911 as they got out of their car. Jorge Torres and Julia Jean stopped to help two young Ukrainians who had been attacked in The Forks on Canada Day night. (Submitted) The knife was still stuck in the man’s throat, Torres said. Jean, who came to Canada from Ukraine in 2010, was able to translate since neither of them spoke much English. “I’m just telling him like, breath, … trying to get him to keep talking,” Torres said. “It’s like, ‘I’m going to die…I’m dying.’ That’s what it says. And he’s pretty much lying in a pool of his own blood at this point.” Torres said they were told the men were crossing the street when they bumped shoulders with three males. When the Ukrainians turned to apologize, they were attacked and the attackers fled, Torres said. Jean, Torres and their friend happened upon them a minute later, Torres estimated. While waiting for paramedics to arrive, Torres said they learned the men were refugees, had only been in Canada for two weeks and, on Canada Day, moved into their apartment in downtown Winnipeg. Jean said they focused on trying to keep the stabbed man calm – while also trying to remain calm. “But in the back of our heads, at the same time, we’re saying this guy could die right now, right here, and there’s nothing we can do,” he said. “So I just tried to tell him to calm down, that everything’s going to be okay. Try to be positive.” Paramedics soon followed and rushed the stabbed man to the hospital, Jean said.
Men want to leave the center
Winnipeg police have said little about the attack and have not announced whether any arrests have been made. They said Saturday that the Major Crimes Unit was still investigating. The incident marked the latest in a string of violent crimes in The Forks in a matter of days. Jean said she and the man’s friend visited him in hospital early Saturday morning. He told her it “felt good,” she said. “I think it’s a miracle in my mind,” he said. The first thing they wanted to know, Jean said, was whether they should stay in Winnipeg. “Where should we go,” she was asked. “What is the safe area?” Jean said she told them she would take them to different parts of the city — but they want to get out of the city center and possibly want to go to another province, she said. “So it’s very unfortunate.”
