Edmonton men honoured for saving taxi driver from knife-wielding attacker

Adam Sawaryn ran towards the taxi as it came to a screeching halt.

A man in the backseat of the cab was trying to slash the driver's neck with a hunting knife.

"He was yelling, 'I'm going to kill you,' Sawaryn recalled Tuesday of the April 19 assault in the Calder neighbourhood of north Edmonton.

The driver, bleeding profusely from his neck and hands, was shouting desperately for help.

"The taxi driver was essentially fighting for his life," Sawaryn said in an interview with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM.

"That's something you don't think about when you see these things online or you hear about them is that, even though the outcome was good, it's a very messy situation and it doesn't make sense when it's happening."

Bronze medals for bravery

Monday at Edmonton police headquarters, Sawaryn and his friend Willis Gunderson were among 30 people recognized for acts of bravery by the Royal Canadian Humane Association.

Sawaryn and Gunderson were each awarded the bronze medal for bravery for their life-saving actions during the assault on the taxi driver.

In a statement, the Royal Canadian Humane Association said the taxi driver had picked up a man and woman earlier that evening. After dropping the woman off, the driver realized the male rider didn't have any money to pay his fare.

The driver called his dispatcher and was told to drive to the nearest police station. On the way there, the man lunged at the driver, slicing him below his right ear, and then again in his ribcage.

The injured driver managed to pull over as he fought back. That's when the attacker crawled into the front seat, slicing open two of the driver's fingers.

The driver was able to grab his attacker by the wrists and wrench the knife from his hands.

'We saw the knife'

Sawaryn and Gunderson were walking home from a McDonald's around 8:30 p.m. when they heard the driver scream as the taxi skidded to a halt in the area of 121st Street and 129th Avenue.

The men quickly called 911 before flinging open the cab's doors.

"We were going for a walk and saw the taxi screech to a shalt and I actually thought he was getting attacked by a bee because I could see arms flailing," Sawaryn said.

"We ran over there and we saw the knife."

Sawaryn said he hesitated as he thought of his wife waiting for him back home, but then he thought of the driver's family.

"My wife was pregnant at the time and I really did think about that. I thought, as long as we get the call into 911, everything is going to be OK."

After a struggle, they managed to pull the knife-wielding man from the cab and restrain him.

"After that point, he was really struggling to get away. We were trying to drag him out through the driver's side door," Sawaryn said.

"That's when we were able to get the knife away, chuck it into the trees and apprehend him."

The man was arrested and later charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault.

Sawaryn suffered a broken bone in his hand during the attack. The driver was released from hospital later that night.

"He had a puncture wound to his neck, a bunch of cuts to his hand down to the bone," Sawaryn said.

While Sawaryn has no regrets about helping that night, he doesn't feel brave for putting himself in harm's way. He feels grateful to have been honoured, and to have made it home safe.

"People ask, if I recommend other people do the same thing but every situation is different. If that had been a gun, I don't think I would have been there.

"I was able to go into action because my friend was there and police were on the way."