A PARAMEDIC is recovering in hospital after being stabbed in the face while on duty at the weekend.
A team of ER24 medics was attacked on Saturday evening after stopping to render assistance at a motor vehicle collision in Ohrtmann Road, Pietermaritzburg.
The paramedics had been on their way to a nearby hospital to hand over patients on board from a previous motor vehicle collision they had attended.
ER24 spokesperson Chitra Bodasing Harduth said: “Four occupants from one of the vehicles involved in the collision verbally assaulted the paramedics.”
She said the situation escalated and one of the occupants produced a knife and attacked one of the paramedics. “He (the paramedic) suffered wounds to his face and hands before a member of the public stepped in and disarmed the knife-wielding man.”
The paramedics called for police assistance but after another emergency vehicle arrived the suspect picked up a brick and attempted to assault the crew.
One of the paramedics managed to disarm the man and when police arrived the suspect proceeded to verbally assault the police officers and the medical crew.
“It is understood that this person also assaulted the driver of the other vehicle that was involved in the collision.”
Police arrested four suspects and a case of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, common assault, reckless and negligent driving, malicious damage to property as well as resisting arrest was opened at Mountain Rise police station.
The patients originally being transported in the ambulance were later transported privately to a nearby hospital.
In the Western Cape at least 70 cases of robbery, theft, damage to property, assault, death threats and hijacking of paramedics were reported in the past 12 months.
Ten people have been arrested in connection with some of the cases.
A week earlier, four paramedics were robbed after their ambulance came under attack near Nyanga.
Early this month, more than 1 000 paramedics took to the streets in Nyanga to voice their frustrations over safety concerns.