On November 9th (Monday) my friend was standing at his usual bus stop near his house to get to work. He was attacked by a man wearing hospital scrubs with a pitchfork. He sustained some nasty injuries to the face, but he was lucky to survive the encounter.

The prongs punctured and fractured a bone on his left eyebrow, through his nose and sinus, fragmenting bones and damaging nerves on the right ride of his nose and his eye. (the doctor said it was a miracle he didn't lose his eye) He has nerve damage in his pallet and teeth after one prong punctured into his mouth and out his cheek. His nose was reset by a ENT doctor, but was told some of his injuries that shifted bones around his eye socket and nose will be permanent.

Direct wall of text quote from my friend on his injuries -

"Depressed fracture on left eye brow. Fracture on right of nose and lots of nose bone shards on left side of nose. Near right inner eye, by the tear duct a piece of eye socket broken out pushing out towards inner right eye year duct. Laceration on left eye brow. Laceration on left cheek. Slight dent on inner right cheek. Numb on left side of nose and some of left cheek. Front and right teeth on top jaw numb. The numbs are possible nerve damage."

Here are some pictures of his injuries

The news articles surrounding his story are very vague with the man who attacked him. Some articles are mentioning the man was admitted (or not admitted officially) into the hospital for drug-related issues, escaping and attacking at least 3 people (counting my friend) There's a lot of confusion of what actually played out, but the result was my pal getting attacked. Nobody has reached out to him and his family, they are in the dark with what actually happened and what is their next step.

Some notes:

• the man escaped a nearby local Kirkland based hospital. This is where Ryan is getting treated for his injuries.

• When he was shortly attacked, officers were chasing the attacker down.

• While he was OTW to the hospital he overheard one of the EMTs mentioning about the guy escaping the hospital.

They are looking for legal advice or even a lawyer to help them out. Him and his family are in a tight spot financially as well. He will need some reconstructive surgery to get his face back to normal.

My buddy resides in Seattle WA/Kirkland, if you know anybody he can be pointed to!

tl;dr - friend got stabbed in the face with a four pronged spade (pitchfork). Survived. Nobody has reached out to him and his family with what happened and who is liable for this mess. Legally, what is his next step?