Bouncer shields cleaver victim

By SCOTT MacLEOD

A Vietnamese man's hand was chopped off in a fight involving men armed with knives, a meat cleaver and a samurai sword in Newmarket.

Bouncer Gilbert Underwood used a nightclub sign to shield the injured man and another from an assailant wielding a meat cleaver.

Police credit Mr Underwood with saving the life of the Vietnamese man, who also had his head split open. The victim is recovering in Middlemore Hospital after surgery to reattach his hand and is in a serious but stable condition.

Witnesses have given varying accounts of the vicious street fight outside Kelly Brown's Night Club on Sunday. Police want to hear from any witnesses.

Mr Underwood, 28, was standing at the nightclub door at 2.30am when he saw a man with a cleaver rush at a group of Asian men.

The group turned on their attacker and pulled the cleaver from him as they punched and kicked him to the ground.

Mr Underwood ran over with a Kelly Brown's sandwich board and used it to deflect a cleaver blow aimed at the original attacker.

Mr Underwood said the group of about eight men then went to the boot of their car and took out knives and a samurai sword. One of them chased the first attacker down the street with the sword.

The remaining men "had the look of death in their eyes", he said. They were "out to get someone".

The man who had taken the cleaver then attacked an apparently innocent Vietnamese man. One of the blows chopped through his wrist, leaving the hand hanging by skin. Another blow hit him in the head.

The Vietnamese man sank to his knees as Mr Underwood rushed over with the sign.

Mr Underwood said he deflected one cleaver blow that was aimed at the man's neck. The cleaver hit the board with a loud thud that was heard down the street.

The cleaver man "looked me straight in the eye", Mr Underwood said. "Then he proceeded to chase someone else. I've never seen anyone chopped before."

Mr Underwood eventually persuaded the man with the cleaver to leave as bystanders wrapped a shirt around the victim's wrist.

Mr Underwood said yesterday that he had little time to think during the fight, but did not feel in too much danger because it seemed the Asians were attacking only other Asians.

"I know it sounds stupid, but I was caught well in the middle of it. I didn't think about it much. I hope someone would do the same for me."

Police spokeswoman Andi Brotherston described the battle as particularly vicious. She said Mr Underwood almost certainly saved the Vietnamese man's life.

Police were to talk to the injured man today.

Last night police arrested and charged a man in connection with the attack.

They want any witnesses to call Detective Sergeant Hayden Mander at Auckland CIU on 09-302-6400.