Paramedic Oliver Mackenzie was preparing to pump gas into his ambulance at a Bangor convenience store in the early morning hours last August when he noticed a man walking toward him.
At first he didn’t think anything of it. Then Mackenzie noticed the man’s body language and realized the man was making really intense eye contact.
When the man, Justin Hill, 38, was about five feet from Mackenzie, he pulled out a pocket knife and started attacking him, cutting Mackenzie’s face, neck and head.
Mackenzie was able to block additional blows with his hand, leading to an injury there as well. Someone came out of the Circle K convenience store on Odlin Road to help restrain Hill, and they kept him there until police arrived.
It was about four minutes from the start of the attack to police arriving, but it felt so much longer, said Mackenzie, who was with a colleague from Northern Light Medical Transport in the early morning of Aug. 13, 2023.
“I do think part of it is wrong place, wrong time on our part,” he said. “Whoever was the next person to pull up was going to have the same fate. We’re fortunate because we have more tools to handle those situations.”
Hill was sentenced June 12 to six years in prison and three years of probation after pleading guilty to one count of aggravated assault, Class B, in Penobscot County Superior Court.
As paramedics they’ve been trained to deal with attacks from patients, but an unexpected one from someone with a weapon was different, Mackenzie said.
Overall, health care workers are five times more likely to experience injuries from violence at work than other professions. They may also be underreporting violent attacks, with one study by the University of Michigan finding instances of violence may be three times higher.
In the first couple of weeks after the attack, Mackenzie said he was in disbelief something like that had happened. But as the shock wore off, he shifted to dealing with the aftermath.
Mackenzie took time off afterward and discussed with his wife if he wanted and should go back to work in an ambulance. Being a paramedic is the only full-time job he’s had, and he didn’t think he could do anything else.
But he returned to work with a different mindset.
“There’s a whole new risk that I knew about but never really acknowledged, but now I have to acknowledge it,” he said.
Mackenzie and other Northern Light paramedics are more careful. They try to make sure the ambulance teams are not separated during a shift. They also try to get gas while the sun is still up, instead of in the middle of the night.
When he runs mental health or assault calls, the attack is on his mind. He said he has to check in to make sure his response is correct for the patient and is not a reaction influenced by the assault.
“Should I be frustrated or am I connecting back?” Mackenzie said. “Let’s take a deep breath and see what’s happening here.”
While Mackenzie said he thinks the assault likely would have happened to anyone who was around that night, he’s still concerned about the violence against health care workers.
“The impact of [an attack] is significantly more than the assault itself,” Mackenzie said. “To recognize that and to be prepared for that because I wasn’t prepared for the months after.”
Mackenzie said he doesn’t think he’s fully found closure yet, even after the sentencing last week. The process was long and circular at times.
After Mackenzie finished his victim impact statement, the judge asked Hill if he had any final thoughts. Hill said he didn’t realize how serious the issue was, which left Mackenzie frustrated.
“That kind of tugged away at closure a little bit, but as we’re in the days after moving forward, it’s slowly becoming a realization it’s, at least for now, done and over,” Mackenzie said.
