AUSTIN (KXAN) — Gregory Seth Gott says he was on a nice walk Tuesday morning at a downtown Austin park when he felt someone bump into him from behind. When he turned around, he realized the man had a machete.
He didn’t recognize the stranger and figured he had been confused for someone else. But then, the man began what authorities call a “random and unprovoked” attack.
“I reach my hand out and it cuts deep into my hand. And that’s when it got pretty scary. I tried to turn and run,” Gott told Nexstar’s KXAN from his hospital bed.
The 19-year-old college student says at one point, he lost his balance and fell. Gott said the man continued to attack him, which resulted in severe injuries to his hands and arms, as Gott tried to shield himself.
“I could barely move. I felt so like… everything got dizzy and blurry,” he said. “And he gets up, and he’s over me, and he just keeps swinging. So I’m just kind of rolling around on the ground trying not to get hit the best I can. But at this point, my hands were… they looked like they were like falling off my arms. So there wasn’t much I could do.”
That’s when bystanders stepped in. Gott says a man started to yell at the suspect, which caused him to walk away. KXAN talked to that man, Nathan Kurten, on Tuesday.
“I yelled, ‘I’m calling 911.’ You know, ‘Give it up,’” Kurten said. “Then at that point, he stopped but he started chasing me.”
Gott says with the assailant moving away from him, others jumped in to apply pressure and keep him calm until first responders could arrive. Gott insinuated those bystanders may have helped save his life.
“Even when he had walked away to chase the other man and I was laying there on the ground, there was just so much blood everywhere, I was pretty confident that I was not going to survive,” Gott said. “But the people around came to me and tied up my wounds. And they, you know, walked me, talked me through it as the ambulance was coming.”
The Austin Police Department arrested Ashton Kaine Talley, 24, in connection with the attack. He was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of evading arrest, APD officials said Wednesday.
Gott says he has surgery Friday that will determine the extent of the damage in his arms and hands. At a minimum, he won’t be able to use them for the next few months. He also has a skull fracture and injuries to his legs and back.
Even still, Gott said he felt lucky with the extent of his injuries and the amount of support he’s received from friends, his family and the community.
“I think it’s important to show that even when there is a person who is capable of so much, so much evil, that there are hundreds more good people,” Gott said.
A GoFundMe has been created for Gott, which KXAN has verified. It reached its $10,000 goal on Thursday.
“Despite it being a really difficult and scary situation, for me it’s also very hopeful,” said Gott. “It’s almost pretty in a way — just how much support and help and love have gotten from so many different people.”
