Toronto Bus driver attacked with hammer: Attacker screamed 'nasty things'

Opinion

Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor

Certainly a horrendous surprise, when a bus driver keeping all eyes on the road, gets a few surprise whacks upside the head by a Looney with a claw end of a hammer.

Thank god passengers intervened in what seems to be a copycat of the Vince Li Greyhound attack.

Bus attacks seem to be a common occurrence, when passengers and drivers fear for their lives on their daily commute.

What has society become? Will we all resort to arming ourselves not certain if our day on earth will be our last?

Certainly when it becomes “Us against Them”, many will take matters into their own hands with Vigilante Justice in what will resort Citizens protecting themselves in what will become a Wild, Wild West Canadian scenario.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2008/08/19/6498531-sun.html

August 19, 2008

Bus driver attacked with hammer Attacker screamed ‘nasty things’

By JASON BUCKLAND, SUN MEDIA

(Photo Inset) Irena Fodorova holds up a hammer in her dining room. Fodorova and her daughter Kamila Kudlackova came to the aid of a TTC bus driver who was attacked by a deranged woman. (Jack Boland/Sun Media)

Irena Fodorova said she was shocked when she saw a young woman board a North York TTC bus yesterday and start smacking the driver with the sharp end of a hammer.

“There were lots of kids and elderly people around watching,” the 43-year-old Whitby woman said. “We couldn’t believe it was happening.

” Accusing the driver of missing her stop earlier in the day, the attacker boarded the bus on Grandravine Dr., near the Jane St.-Finch Ave. area, and began swinging at her, Fodorova said. “She was screaming nasty, nasty things, yelling ‘You didn’t stop for me!’

” Fodorova said. PASSENGERS INTERVENE Along with two other passengers, Fodorova leaped to restrain the woman — who police said may be “emotionally disturbed” — taking away the hammer and pinning her down until cops arrived.

“She was bleeding from the hands from trying to stop the attack,” Fodorova said of the driver, who was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

Toronto Police Const. Tony Vella said cops are thankful for the quick thinking of the three brave passengers, who prevented something that could have been “a lot worse.”