For Keenan Moore, the morning of March 2 seemed to be going normally. He had no idea that it would be his last day of work for at least six months, or that his insurance wouldn’t provide enough coverage for him and his family to live on during that time.
“There was no indication that this fellow was going to attack me,” he recalls. “There was none. Because if I had an inkling like that, there’s no way I would’ve turned my back on this fellow."
Moore was just starting his work day as a bank courier when he became the first victim of what turned out to be a seemingly random stabbing spree across the city: four separate incidents along Vancouver’s Broadway corridor, all believed to have been perpetrated by the same 33-year-old man, who police say had no known connection to the victims.
Moore was stabbed multiple times with a butcher’s knife, suffering deep wounds to the back of his head and right hand. He was left bleeding on the sidewalk near the intersection of Broadway and Cambie Street, where good Samaritans—including a doctor—tended to him until paramedics arrived.
“I just laid on the sidewalk,” Moore remembers. “All I could think about was that I was never going to see my wife and kids again.”
He did, of course, and he’s thankful for that.
But he soon learned that his problems were not over. He will be unable to work for months, at least, and he is only eligible for minimal workers’ compensation in the meantime. It wasn’t until after the attack that he and his wife learned they had less coverage than they thought. The couple says the compensation will be just enough to pay for monthly rent—far less than the roughly $7,000 per month Moore earns as a self employed courier, before taxes.
“People should check their premiums to make sure they have enough coverage,” Moore’s wife Trish told CTV News. “You just never think this is going to happen to you. And when it did, it was quite the shock.”
A family member has set up a crowdfunding page to help cover costs for the couple and their two teenage daughters—one of whom has disabilities—during Moore’s recovery process. He’s currently undergoing physiotherapy three times a week, in the hopes he will eventually regain full use of his hand.
The 33-year-old suspect in the stabbing spree remains in custody and is facing assault charges.
With files from CTV Vancouver’s Sarah MacDonald