SEEING MY FRIEND ALMOST GET MURDERED

CANADA & U.S. PHOTO SERIES PT15

AUSTIN, TEXAS

The tour of America was well on it’s way to becoming 3.5months of drinking, socialising and making plenty of new friends, no one more so than my Ozzie buddy John. Now as Austin wasn’t my idea I can’t take the credit for it being such good fun but I can sure shoulder some responsibility for what was to come, we were in it together weren’t we John!

WITH HIS HEAD SPILT WIDE OPEN JOHN FELL TO THE GROUND AND WAS LOSING BLOOD FAST

I had met John in San Diego and with our personalities and sense of humour hit it off straight away. So inevitably we done what backpackers normally do and decided to travel with each other for the rest of America. He was on an epic around the world trip, something I looked up to and dreamed of doing myself; a dream that would eventually become reality! Now there aren’t many people I could travel with for so long but John would be somewhere at the top of the list, very laid back, makes me laugh, enjoys socialising and someone you can trust to have your back! Exactly the type of person I needed!

WHERE IS AUSTIN, TEXAS?

Anyway less about John and back to the story. It was just like any another night in Austin and we made our way from bar to bar on the hugely infamous Sixth Street. We were far from drunk but after just a few hours we headed off the main street and up a side road, possibly to head home I’m not quite sure.

SEEING MY FRIEND ALMOST GET MURDERED

GETTING JUMPED

We were only 20 or 30 metres away from 6^th street when all of a sudden someone jumped at John from behind. After a quick scuffle we were in the middle of a construction site and the attacker was soon joined by a friend who introduced himself to me by way of a flying Kungfu kick. He decided to even the odds but as I had broken my hand only 2 days earlier I wasn’t going to be much use and if I’m honest if his Kungfu skills were anything to go by he wasn’t much use either. Anyway his friend soon fled and the original attacker began his retreat but John being John wasn’t happy to let bygones be bygones and followed him.

SEEING MY FRIEND ALMOST GET MURDERED

WEAPONS

After seeing away his friend I had lost track and tried to catch up with John who was now leaving the building site and making his way across the road beside some streetworks. I guess at this stage the attacker realised John wasn’t the easy target he thought he was so he now had a length of 4×2 in his hand and John was dipping and diving every time it was swung at him. Unfortunately it eventually made contact and cracked him clean on the side of his head, edge first, splitting him wide open. This was followed by another, this time on the back of the head. John fell to the ground and after realising what happened the attacker dropped the weapon and bolted.

Now at this point I had a choice, stay and help John who was already struggling to stay conscious with the amount of blood he was losing or chase the attacker. I’m all about principle and justice in this case so I left John to lick his wounds and made a beeline for the attacker, it’s what John would have wanted!!

SEEING MY FRIEND ALMOST GET MURDERED

THE POLICE CHASE

The guy knew he had fucked it and after running blind across the road and out of pure luck a police car just happened to be driving past so I jumped out in front of it, slammed the bonnet a couple of times and shouted them to come after me (don’t try this at home kids). All credit to the copper, he was no donut fiend and was soon out following down the street, he knew what was up. It sure didn’t take him long to catch up with me and the little maggot. One thing about America is the coppers don’t take any shit, and probably at times don’t take enough but the attacker was well aware of this and dropped to the ground as soon as the copper pulled out his gun.

He’s still a 10/10 in my book!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Its hard to give my final thoughts on Austin without being negative but I’ll always say the majority of people in Austin were accommodating and friendly. You wouldn’t be standing in a bar long before someone came over to say hello. That being said we are yet to find out if the culprit actually got sentenced or off on licence.

To this day we wonder what actually happened, did we get some attention they wanted, did they mistake us for someone else or was it just the wrong place at the wrong time…

NEXT UP

I’ve lost my photos to Vegas so I’ll have to bypass it and head on to Miami. Meeting up with John in New York once he’s has enough time to recover! Click to read!

SAFE TRAVELS, DS x
13/229

This episode is part of the The Canada & U.S. Photo Series, click to see episode 1.