South African doctors were trying to save the legs of a top triathlete Wednesday after three men tried to chop his limbs off with a chainsaw.
Mhlengi Gwala, 27, was biking to a training session before dawn Tuesday when the attackers pulled him off his bike, dragged him into bushes and started sawing into his right calf, damaging muscle, nerves and bone.
“The chainsaw wasn’t that sharp and they couldn’t get it started. So they manually started cutting,” close personal friend Sandile Shange told News24. “Two of them held him down while the other started on his leg.”
When they got to the bone and couldn’t cut anymore, they started in on his left leg.
“They kept on cutting and when they got to the bone, because the saw was not that sharp, the saw got stuck,” police spokesperson Nqobile Gwala told the BBC.
The men reportedly were interrupted by a security guard and ran away — allowing the bloody athlete to crawl to a road and flag down a car to take him to the hospital.
Gwala, who was set to compete in the South African national championships this month, was undergoing a five-hour surgery for his injuries, said Dennis Jackson, director of the elite athlete program for the KwaZulu-Natal province.
Doctors are confident they can save the athlete’s legs, as the attackers missed a main artery.
There was no immediate explanation for the grisly attack.
that is some seriously f'd up stuff ... hope this guy pulls through all of the impending surgeries
