- Rakeem Young was walking his dog on Friday, Jan. 28, when they were attacked by a man wielding a machete
- The suspect threatened to chop off the dog’s head, and Young reacted by protecting her, but four of his fingers were sliced off when he saved her
- After three of his four fingers were recovered, he underwent a 13-hour surgery to repair his hand
A Bronx man has been hospitalized for days after four of his fingers were sliced off by a machete-wielding man, reports ABC 7, CBS News New York and the New York Daily News.
Rakeem Young, 34, was attacked while walking his 4-year-old pit bull Chanel near Southern Blvd. and E. 178th St. in East Tremont on Friday, Jan. 24, around 11:20 a.m. Young told the Daily News the attacker also had a dog, but his was unleashed.
When Chanel went to greet the other dog, the other person allegedly told Young, “ ‘Yo, get your dog. I’m [going to] chop her head off,’ ” Young told the Daily News. “And then the dude just swung the knife at me for no apparent reason. I remember lifting my hand saying, ‘No! No!’ ”
As Young moved his hand to protect Chanel, the attacker allegedly took a 2-foot blade and chopped off the fingers of Young’s left hand, per CBS.
“He just swings the machete and that’s when I throw my hand up to grab it and it sliced off my fingers,” Young told ABC 7.
The suspect hit him twice after he cut him, and then Chanel attacked the suspect, Young told the Daily News. Young then ran down the street and looked down at his hand to saw his fingers were missing.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he added. “It wasn’t even painful because it was just, maybe because, my adrenaline and everything.”
Young told ABC 7 that if he hadn’t saved Chanel, it would have “tormented [him] for the rest of [his] life.”
“Every time I close my eyes, I replay it over and over again, and I have a hard time sleeping,” he told the Daily News. “If he would have sliced my dog’s head off like that, that would have broke my heart. That would have broke me for the rest of my life.”
The suspect ran away after the attack, police said. The attacker is around 40 to 50 years old, stands 5 feet, 10 inches and weighs 180 pounds, with a dark complexion. The suspect was last seen wearing a tan-colored hat, pants and boots, a gray hoodie and a green vest, police said, per CBS.
Since the attack, three of Young’s four fingers were recovered by emergency personnel. He underwent a 13-hour surgery at St. Barnabas Hospital. The MTA maintenance was then transferred to Bellevue Hospital for recovery.
“They basically put my pointer finger as my middle finger and my middle finger as my ring finger,” Young told the Daily News. “So I’m just missing my index finger. They couldn’t find the ring finger.”
His mother, Kimtreese Young, told the Daily News that as of Sunday, Jan. 26, people were “still out there looking for the finger that was missing.”
Young will need additional medical procedures, including surgery to improve blood flow to his reattached fingers, and his mother made a GoFundMe page to raise money for medical expenses.
“He’s a lefty. He does everything with that hand,” Rakeem’s aunt, Tashemia Young, told CBS. “He’s angry. He’s hurt. He feels unsafe.”
“This man is still on the loose. We don’t know if this man wants to circle back around and be like you keep talking about me, I can finish it,” Tashemia continued. “And he’s walking around here with a machete inside his pants. How are you not able to find this person?”
Anyone with any information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).
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A representative for the NYPD did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for additional information on Tuesday.
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