A 21-year-old drug store employee who risked his life trying to save a woman who was being attacked with a knife in Barrhaven describes the experience as a "scene from a horror movie."
George Rusu was working in the back room of a Shoppers Drug Mart store on Strandherd Drive on Friday when he heard screams.
Rusu immediately ran out of the store where he saw a man repeatedly stabbing Brenda Van Leyen, 47. She remains in hospital recovering from serious injuries.
"I seen this guy on top of her . . . All I did, I just reacted to the scene that I saw and I just got the guy off her and try to kind of sort of push him towards the wall and he came back at me and took a swing and then I saw the knife," Rusu told CTV Ottawa.
Although Rusu was stabbed in the chest during the attack, he didn't notice the injury until he rushed back into the store to call police.
"I wasn't even thinking -- I just acted. My body went into an automatic mode and just reacted to what I'd seen," he said.
A manhunt for suspect Claude Legare, 35, ended when police found his body in the burned out home he once shared with Van Leyen.
Rusu said he's relieved Legare is no longer on the streets.
"Everybody I think -- and myself -- are feeling a lot more relieved now that he's dead."
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Jonathan Rotondo
