Taxi driver severely chopped, pretended to be dead during robbery at Ruby

In an effort to save his life, a taxi-driver pretended to be dead on Saturday after five persons who hired him for a job attempted to murder him during the course of a robbery.

Shon Smith, 46, called ‘Paper Man’, was at the Parika junction on Saturday at 12:00 hrs when five Spanish-speaking men hired him to take them to Ruby, East Bank Essequibo. During an interview with the News Room on Tuesday, the victim’s wife, Shaviza Smith, said he was able to save himself by driving to a nearby house after the bandits escaped.

Smith was chopped multiple times to his body and robbed of his cellphone and a large sum of cash.

“They tell him from the start that it’s not a far way and whilst going, they didn’t telling him to stop and he ask them how far more and then one of them start take the knife and start jook him on his hand,” the woman said.

She claimed that one of the attackers hit the stick gear causing the car to go into neutral and eventually stop. The men then relieved the driver of a large sum of cash and his cellphone.

Shon told his wife that the bandits took him out of the car and one of them used a knife to cut the back of his neck.

“He said when they come out of the car, the same one that was cutting his neck continued and after they didn’t stop, he decided to stop move, like play dead and he said he didn’t fight back because it was five persons and he can’t imagine fighting five persons.”

According to the wife, the bandits then left her husband near a trench and escaped. The taxi driver then got up, wrapped his neck with his shirt to stop the bleeding and drove to a nearby house to seek refuge.

He was treated at the Leonora Cottage Hospital and a report was lodged with the police.

The wife explained that she and her husband have three daughters who are now traumatized after seeing the state he is in.

The man underwent several X-rays, blood tests and received stitches to his neck and hand but the doctors want to monitor the injuries.