Seriously. This past Thursday I could not have been more proud of and more thankful for the man I married.
We were headed out of town with our trailer to go camping. We ended up leaving our house slightly later than initially planned. We just pulled away from our house and got a block down the street and we noticed an older woman flagging us down from the side of the street. When we got closer, she completely stepped in to the middle of the street to block us, all while holding her hand up and waiving. As we pulled up, she came to my side of the truck and I already had the window down at that point. I said "Oh my God Mitch, her hand and arm are covered in blood". No sooner had I said that, Mitch shifted to park and was out of the truck. She was wailing in a language I assumed to be Chinese or Mandarin and gesturing toward her home. I grabbed my phone and ran over to the front lawn.
When I go there, I noticed Mitch was at the front of the driveway in between the parked car and the garage door. I couldn't see what was going on, because the car in the driveway was blocking my view. There was so much adrenaline running through me, I couldn't mentally connect the blood with anything and I was thinking maybe someone was having a heart attack.
I was on the phone with 911 at this point and the next moments were somewhat of a blur. I know that less than a minute had passed over these next moments, but it seemed like much longer. I ran back to the street to get the home address to give to the 911 operator then ran up to the older woman who was now sitting on a front step with a woman in her late 20's. I assessed what was going on and explained to the 911 operator that there were two women with wounds, an older woman with a hand wound and the younger woman with a head wound. They instructed me to have them compress the wounds. There was a young, elementary-aged boy there and he went in the house to get paper towels for them. During that time, I noticed that two neighbors had come over from two houses down and went over to where Mitch was.
I noticed at this time that two Sheriff cars had just pulled up and took off running to where Mitch was and I told that to the 911 operator and hung up with them. Not even 10 seconds later, a third Sheriff showed up and asked where his partners were. I directed him toward the front.
The crazy part about all this is that I never heard sirens or saw lights. They just appeared. Amazingly, within 2 minutes of me calling 911 (part of which was still on the phone with them), about 15 police units, 2 ambulances a fire truck and helicopter showed up. Everything felt so surreal.
At this point, Mitch had emerged from the front. He came over and filled me in on his part and I was so thankful that he was safe. When he initially went to the front of the driveway, there was a man in his young 30's who had a bear-grip bite on the younger woman's head. An older man was beating the younger man over the head with a shoe trying to get him to release. Mitch rushed at him and took him to the ground.
He had him pinned by stepping on one of his wrists and his shin. He had his knee in the guys sternum to try to get him to calm down. The guys other hand was pinned beneath him and he kept trying to get it out. When he did, Mitch saw he had a 6-inch steak knife in it. Mitch was able to get it from him and threw it into the neighbors driveway. At that point, the two neighbors had run over and helped Mitch to pin the free leg and arm and hold him down for the minute until the sheriff's arrived. The scary part is, that since the whole family was Asian, I assumed this guy was as well. When they finally pulled him out on a stretcher, I saw that he was a large Hispanic man, easily the same size as Mitch.
We had to stay for an additional 40 minutes or so to give statements repeatedly to different Sheriff's. The entire thing was so surreal. Neither of us have ever been involved in anything like that. We were literally in a crime scene like what you would see on TV. Insane.
I am so proud of my good-hearted husband who is always more than willing to jump in and help when needed. He is one of the most courageous men I know and I am so proud to be his wife. I understand how dangerous this entire situation was and how it could have easily turned south.
Mitch and I both understand that God's timing is perfect in all things and we are thankful that we were there to help save those people and also that he used Mitch to help and spared him from injury.
Here's an article from the whole thing in the Pasadena Star News.
