‘I see him just slashing her’: Four injured in stabbing frenzy

Witnesses including Cronulla Sharks chairman Steve Mace have described the moment a man T-boned a car in Sydney’s south and then allegedly turned on his female passenger, as heroic onlookers tried to intervene.

A major police operation is underway in Engadine after multiple people were stabbed.

A man repeatedly stabbed his female partner with a boxcutter while he was driving down a suburban street in Sydney’s south in a suspected domestic violence incident, inflicting injuries on numerous others including a police officer who tried to save the woman’s life.

Two people were also harmed when he T-boned their car, and he slashed three others before also turning the blade on himself.

The dramatic scenes played out on a sleepy Sunday morning morning in Engadine in front of young families.

Despite numerous stab wounds to her neck, breast, stomach and legs, the woman, in her 40s, is now in a stable condition.

Witnesses described seeing a white sedan fly through the intersection at Old Bush Rd and the Princes Highway about 8.50am before it collided with a blue Mitsubishi travelling south on the highway. The airbags of the white sedan deployed and it spun out.

Numerous people walking past and in nearby vehicles ran over to assist the couple, thinking it was an ordinary crash.

When they reached the vehicle, they allegedly heard a woman screaming loudly, and quickly realised she was being attacked and stabbed by the 58 year-old driver.

One witness, Cronulla Sharks chairman Steve Mace described the horrific scenes, saying he was “Just cutting her, cutting her neck, he cut her breast ... across the stomach. In the legs in the side, wherever he could go.”

Police believe the female passenger was assaulted in the car before the crash, which is why the man was driving erratically.

One passerby, who tried to pull the woman out of the car, was slashed down his abdomen, a witness said.

The driver, wearing a white t-shirt covered in blood, jumped out of the car and a number of good samaritans described surrounding the man for about five minutes, and trying to calm him down as he ranted that he was “going to kill her”. Witnesses said also began cutting his wrists.

“He’s definitely seen to injure himself after exiting the vehicle,” Commander at Sutherland Shire Police Area Command Superintendent Donald Faulds said.

Dramatic footage shows a policeman holding a taser up to the 58 year-old man before he runs about 200 metres in an attempt to escape.

The man allegedly slit the police officer’s forearm and wrist before he was tasered twice and fell to the ground.

At some point, the accused man also cut his own throat.

One of the first people on the scene was Mr Mace who described to The Daily Telegraph what he saw.

“A car accident happened in front of us ... I (said to my son) just wait, let’s make sure these people are alright, it looked like their airbags went off. Jumped out the car, went around to the driver’s but then heard his wife and partner screaming even louder, so I ran around to the passenger and tried to open the door and all of the sudden I see him just slashing her,” he said.

“Just cutting her, cutting her neck, he cut her breast ... across the stomach. In the legs in the side, wherever he could go.

“I was then trying to pull her out of the car ... he was slashing at us. There was another gentleman that came to help, that poor gentleman tried to grab her legs and realised he had the knife, he copped a gash from up to his belly button.

“So in between that, we finally got her out between the seatbelt and then laid her down.”

Witness John Elias shows us how the police held the throat of the accused to stop the bleeding. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

Another witness, who only wanted to go by Wayne, said a number of people stood around the 58 year-old man as he held the knife and yelled that he was “going to kill the lady”, among other obscenities and abuse.

“All we were thinking was about getting the man away from the lady. A guy closed the (car) door to keep her away. He was out here, we fronted him and then we saw the knife, and then he started talking about all this other stuff.”

“I said ‘you need to calm down a bit’.”

He said the “community was going to be affected by this big time.”

John Elias, who lived across the road from the scene, said “when I come out he (had) basically slit his throat, slit a policeman’s wrist, and then the policeman were holding his neck for half an hour or more.”

A man is loaded into the back of an ambulance. Picture: NV

“He was yelling out stuff but I don’t know exactly what he was yelling ... next thing you know he was in the middle of the road with his neck cut and bleeding out.”

Superintendent Faulds said the man was known to police for a number of matters but there were no domestic incidents recorded between the southwest Sydney pair.

“We believe the female was being assaulted in the car whilst the male was driving the vehicle ... A number of witnesses mentioned the car was driving quite erratically at the time, and we believe that’s when the assault was occurring in the car, and as a result, they collided with another vehicle,” Superintendent Faulds said.

The scene in Engadine. Picture: Nine News

He commended the bravery of the public.

“They’ve just turned up, thinking it was just a normal motor vehicle accident, so they’ve obviously gone to render assistance to both people, and then they were faced with a male armed with a box cutter, which was quite frightening, but very, very brave on those people’s behalf,” he said.

Two people in the blue car were injured during the accident.

In a statement, police said four people, including a police officer, had been injured following a “car crash and suspected stabbing”. Picture: NV

The alleged culprit was transported to Liverpool hospital and is in a serious but stable condition. His partner was taken to St George Hospital with multiple stab wounds and is in a critical condition.

The person who tried to help and was stabbed in the abdomen is in a serious but stable condition, and the police officer is in a stable condition.