Stabbing victim: 'Get the f*** out' of my truck

The 27-year-old Somalian man arrested over the incident is under police guard in hospital after being treated for gunshot injuries to his arm and shoulder. Photo / 3 News

Marteine Robin was doing a routine early morning delivery to a Christchurch school tuckshop when a knife-wielding man suddenly jumped into her truck.

She instinctively yelled at him to "get the f*** out" of her delivery truck, but he responded by forcing her at knifepoint to drive him across Christchurch, and then stabbing her in the shoulder.

"I thought he had punched me and struck a nerve in my shoulder and made my arm go dead, but then I felt blood running down my back and I realised he'd stabbed me," Ms Robin said. "I feared the worst, I thought I was going to die."

Ms Robin, 36, eventually managed to escape when the man was momentarily distracted. But the drama only escalated when the man left the truck near a busy Christchurch intersection and then almost fatally stabbed a Christchurch City Council worker who intervened. The armed man was only stopped when tasered and then shot twice by police.

The long-serving city council worker, aged in his 50s, was taken to Christchurch Hospital in a critical condition with multiple stab wounds, and was said to be in a serious but stable condition late yesterday. Ms Robin was treated and discharged from hospital yesterday.

A 27-year-old Somalian man arrested over the incident is under police guard in hospital after being treated for gunshot injuries to his arm and shoulder. The man is still to be interviewed or charged.

Ms Robin said the man in her truck forced her to drive to central Christchurch, then towards Hoon Hay Rd in south Christchurch - an area she knew well because that is where she lives.

"We'd gone through a lot of rush- hour traffic. We got onto Hoon Hay Rd and he made me park on the side of the road. I turned the truck off and he wrapped the knives up in my polar fleece and I jumped out of the truck."

"I banged on car bonnets, trying to get everyone's attention. I opened a car door and told a guy what happened and he phoned police on his cellphone."

The armed man left the truck and then stabbed the city council worker, before driving his vehicle a short distance and crashing it.

Jade Lynn, 22, was driving a truck to work when he came across Ms Robin bleeding on the footpath, and the council worker who had been stabbed.

He told the Stuff website he saw the armed man and confronted him with a pinch bar.

"He was coming at me with a big meat cleaver and a small skeleton knife. I was petrified. But I was trying to get him away from the traffic and people. I was swinging the pole around trying to keep him back."

Mr Lynn said he hit the attacker across the side of the neck with the bar but the man kept coming at him as police were making their moves.

"He was still going [after being tasered] and then turned on the cops and started swinging the knives at the cops."

Ms Robin said of Mr Lynn's actions: "He needs a bloody huge medal, he was very ballsy and very brave."

Eyewitnesses also praised the courage of Mr Lynn.

Bruce Cameron, 60, said: "I walked around the corner and saw a guy with a cut neck and a wild man in a black hoodie chasing him with knives.

"That's when ... this guy with a crowbar stepped in and was stopping the guy hurting anyone else. If it wasn't for him there would've been a lot more people hurt."

The shooting would be investigated by the Independent Police Conduct Authority, but Police Commissioner Peter Marshall said the actions of the officers involved "exemplify the spirit of New Zealand police".