Townsville mother hospitalised after fighting off armed intruder

A Townsville mother has been hospitalised with a leg wound after she was ambushed by a young man armed with an axe while her baby was just a room away.

A Townsville mother has been hospitalised with a leg wound after she was ambushed by a young man armed with an axe while at home.

Burdell resident Kristy Collins was standing in her kitchen unloading grocery bags around 10am on a Sunday morning when she noticed movement in the hallway.

Her husband had just left for a quick run to Woolies to pick up some missed groceries, and her 18-month-old daughter was in the lounge room.

“I was in the kitchen and I turned around, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a black T-shirt in my house near the hallway table,” Mrs Collins said.

“I knew it wasn’t my husband because he’d just gone. So I yelled ‘get out, who are you?’ and I chased him out of the house because my daughter was there.”

Kristy Collins and her family.

Ms Collins described the intruder as a young man, who wore a black and white bandana around his lower face.

“I chased him out into the garage and he’d turned around and raised an axe at me. I didn’t know he had a weapon at the time,” she said.

Kristy Collins suffered an injury during the attack.

“I wanted him away from my daughter. When he raised the axe I threw my arm at him, to hit him, because I didn’t want him to come back into the house.”

The intruder then ran around Mrs Collins’ car in the garage and she chased him.

“There was a girl in a getaway car parked in the middle of the street,” Ms Collins said.

“She’d gotten out of the car and threw something at me, which I think was a knife, and it got me in the leg. I didn’t pay any attention to that, I kept chasing the guy because he’d obviously got a set of keys from the hallway table and was trying to get into my car.

“He kept raising the axe at me and I’ve kinda stopped yelling ‘get the f- out’ and started screaming at the top of my lungs and chasing him.”

Police are investigating the incident.

The intruder had picked up two sets of keys – neither of them belonging to the one car in the garage.

It was at this point a car driving past sprung into action to help Mrs Collins.

“They’d seen this car parked in the middle of the road and seen these kids with face masks on and they’d done a u-ey up the roundabout and came up the road honking their horn, this kid got in the car and took off.”

The two attackers fled in a car that is believed to be stolen.

Mrs Collins said she immediately went inside to check on her 18-month-old daughter, who burst into tears.

At that point, the mother sat down and noticed the deep cut in her leg.

“We’d only been in the house for two weeks, so it was a bit of a shock to the system,” she said.

“I’d come from Kirwan which usually gets a bit of a bad rep, but I’d never had this happen in Kirwan.”

Mrs Collins said she felt silly leaving the garage door open, but said it was only open for five minutes and that’s all it took for the attack to happen.

“The funny thing was, I have two big Great Danes but I hadn’t put them inside the new house yet,” she said.

Both dogs were locked in the backyard of the new suburban home, and were unable to get access to the house or front yard during the attack.

“I’m silly. When he raised that axe I should’ve backed down, I don’t know what I was thinking,” Mrs Collins said

“I guess we’ve figured out if I’ve got flight or fight mode.”

Mrs Collins said the police arrived, took her statement, and called out major crime and forensics.

“They got a lot of fingerprints from my car because I’d chased him around the car a fair few times,” she said.

“They think they know who it is. They got some good prints from my car.”

Mrs Collins said even if the cops did catch her attackers, she still held concerns.

“Enough is enough. Eventually people are going to take it into their own hands and you don’t want it to come to that, so the politicians need to do something about it and not just talk about it,” she said.

A police spokesman confirmed they were investigating the incident.
“Police were called to an incident at a residence on Kahana Ave in Burdell at 10:10am, yesterday,” The spokesman said.

“A male was seen in the area at the time and detectives are attempting to identify the male, which is forming part of an ongoing investigation.

“Anyone with any information or footage is urged to contact police.”

Originally published as Townsville mother hospitalised after fighting off armed intruder