The 61-year-old Moisis Petridis, an employee in the green services department of the Municipality of Pavlos Melas, experienced a particularly shocking incident while working in Eukarpia. As he describes to thestival.gr, he suffered a sudden and violent attack from a 34-year-old man, which terrified him and made him fear for his life. “He threw an incredibly powerful punch to my chest and I couldn’t breathe! At that moment I feared for my life,” he says characteristically.
As he reported, yesterday morning he was with a colleague in an area of Eukarpia, behind “Papageorgiou” hospital, cleaning weeds from roads and sidewalks.
At one point, while cutting weeds outside the fence of a residence, “I didn’t see a small tree just a few centimeters tall hidden in the weeds – it wasn’t even visible and I accidentally cut it.”
A woman living in the house approached him saying “oh, you cut the little tree we planted,” and he replied that he hadn’t seen it and that they should have shown him it was there. Immediately her son rushed out, who headed toward Mr. Petridis and began “shouting and cursing at me and my colleague.”
“When I saw him I noticed he was very angry and not only was saliva running from his mouth but he was literally foaming. He came at me and then went behind me and grabbed me by the straps of the harness I was wearing and started pushing me left and right while hitting the grass cutter on the ground, which he broke,” described Mr. Petridis, who at some point managed to escape and drop the grass cutter.
“At some point it crossed my mind to attack him too but I saw the man wasn’t well and I did nothing. Then he attacked me and threw an incredibly powerful punch to my chest and I couldn’t breathe! At that moment I feared for my life,” he added.
During the incident, both the perpetrator’s mother and Mr. Petridis’s colleague had “frozen,” unable to intervene.
“He was telling me to say my name and was recording me with his phone saying he would make me go viral. On one hand I think the man has issues and should go to a psychiatric hospital so he doesn’t kill some child, on the other hand I think how could he think while attacking me to record me and tell me he’ll make me viral?” stated Mr. Petridis, who called the police himself and the perpetrator was arrested. He was transferred to “Hippokrateio” hospital, where he was examined and discharged the same evening.
“They did blood tests, three X-rays and a CT scan because they were worried about the blow to my chest. They saw a line and feared a fracture. But fortunately there wasn’t one. Today I still have a heavy head and pain in my neck and back,” concluded Mr. Petridis, who is currently at the courthouse as he filed charges against the 34-year-old.
