EXCLUSIVE | 

Couple attacked with machete in west Dublin park after trying to stop teens beating dog

46-year-old delivery driver left with broken elbow and lacerations to arms and back

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A delivery driver has been left with a broken elbow and lacerations to his arms and back after he and his wife were attacked by machete-wielding teens.

The couple were enjoying a Sunday stroll in Hazelbury Park in Clonee, west Dublin, on August 14 when they were set upon after they tried to prevent one of the teenagers beating a dog.

The 46-year-old – whose arm is now in a cast – is out of work and doctors have told him they will not be able to update him on his injuries until the start of October.

The man’s wife, who spoke with the Sunday World on condition of anonymity, says her husband was struck with the machete more than a dozen times and she believes he is lucky to have survived.

“I believed he was going to kill him,” the woman said of her husband’s attacker.

“He just kept swinging the machete up and down. It’s a miracle he isn’t dead.”

Speaking of the circumstances leading up to the horror attack, the woman said: “We were out for a walk and we came across these two teenagers in the park.

“The younger one was beating a dog and, when I saw that, I told him not to hit the dog … that he was abusing the animal. He started saying something back but they were in the distance so we let them go because we were returning to our house.”

The woman said she took her phone out to report the abuse of the animal to Gardaí.

But, when she did so, the teenager who had beaten the dog came back and tried to kick it out of her hand.

“He started coming towards me then as if to attack me,” she recalled.

“My husband moved between us to try and protect me. When he did, the teenager started walking away and then he tripped.

“My husband stopped following and turned his back on him to check on me and that’s when the other teenager, he was wearing a hoodie, reached behind his back and pulled out a machete from beneath his top.

“My husband had turned his back so he didn’t see what was happening and then the older boy ran up behind him and started bashing him with it … over and over again. He was trying to kill him … I don’t have any doubt about that.

“My husband was trying to cover the back of his head because that’s where he was aiming and that’s why his arms and elbow got all chopped up. While this was happening, the other teenager came back to me, shouting at me, so I couldn’t go to help. All I could do was watch what was happening. And then they just ran away.”

Asked how many times she believes the teenager swung the machete down on her partner, the woman replied: “More than a dozen, a couple of dozen times at least.

“The blood was pouring from his arms. His elbow was chopped through.

“I couldn’t find my phone so I had to use his phone and I called 112. I honestly thought he was going to die.”

The woman’s husband said the hardest thing for him to deal with right now is the fact the attack has cost him his livelihood.

“I can’t work,” he said. “I’m a delivery driver and I am self employed but I can’t work with my arm in a cast. I have bills to pay. Maybe I can go on the Social. I just don’t know, It’s crazy. I have never been on Social Welfare in my life.”

The couple said what insurance they have will not cover their lost income.

“On the 5th of October I will see the doctors again and see what can be done with it,” the husband said of his elbow injury.

The woman said the couple’s fear is that he may never regain the full use of his right hand.

Sources told the Sunday World there have been no arrests in connection with the attack but that a garda investigation is ongoing.

Anyone with information that may lead to the identification of the attackers is asked to contact Blanchardstown Garda station on (01) 666 7000.