Two months after being stabbed on a stag do in Portugal a Welsh dad is still unable to work and no closer to getting any answers. Alex Evans was "left for dead" for around an hour between some cars and a rubbish bin in a street in Albufeira, a popular resort in the Algarve, on May 15. The 33-year-old has no memories of the attack itself but when he woke up in hospital he was told he'd been robbed and knifed three times in the stomach.
Unable to stop his liver bleeding doctors rushed Alex to intensive care where he spent two days before a further eight days in Faro hospital. Meanwhile his distraught parents drove from their home in Treherbert to London desperately hoping they could get a flight out to Portugal and get to their son's bedside.
Alex's mum, Bev Evans, has described the moment she waited for her son after he was discharged from the Portuguese hospital. "He was walking holding his paperwork in one hand and his stomach in the other," she said. Because everything was conducted in Portuguese neither Alex nor his parents know the full extent of his injuries including how deep the knife penetrated his abdomen. "Since coming home we've tried different avenues," said Alex. "It's frustrating really – you just want to know more than anything."
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Hearing news this month that another man from the Welsh valleys has been stabbed in the same resort was "upsetting" for Alex and his partner Leah Thomas. Joel Collins, a 35-year-old dad of four was stabbed at the beginning of July and remains in Faro hospital while his family struggle to get information about what exactly happened.
The similarities between the two attacks are striking, said Alex, as both men were on a stag do, both had become separated from their friends, and both were walking home alone. Alex had only arrived in the Algarve two days before he was stabbed at around 5am.
"We'd gone on a night out," Alex said. "It was going really well until I got split up from the boys and I decided to start walking home. I was pretty close to the hotel where we were staying. A group of boys came up to me and asked me where I was going. That's all I remember. I woke up a day later in hospital being told I'd been stabbed." His injuries were extensive with damage to his intestines, spleen, and liver. He has a large scar from htreis ribs to below his belly button where surgeons operated on him in Faro.
The thieves targeted Alex for his mobile phone, watch, and wallet, police told Alex and his family – although there remains very little information available surrounding the incident. A stranger came across the unconscious Alex and phoned the emergency services – an act which doctors said may well have saved his life. Alex has since traced his saviour and even sent him a birthday present as a way of saying thank you.
"We've traced my phone calls. I phoned my friend at about 5am and we've contacted the boy who found me and he said he was there for about 6am. So we think I was there for about between an hour and 45 minutes before an ambulance crew took me to the hospital."
Alex, a vehicle technician for Welsh Water, has been advised by his doctor to take up to six months off from work to enable him to fully recover. He has to wait six months before he can be officially diagnosed with PTSD from the attack but suffers flashbacks and insomnia as a result.
"Most nights I struggle to sleep," he said. "A smell or a noise can trigger flashbacks and I just go straight back to that hospital [in Faro]." Bev can only watch helplessly. "Physically he's getting there but his mind is still in Portugal," she said. "He's there lying in bed not being able to get up all over again."
Although he's accepted that it's unlikely his attackers will ever be found Alex is angry that "nothing will be done". He thinks others have been attacked in Portugal and believes neither he nor Joel are the first.
"I said straightaway that it would happen again," he said. "I didn't realise it would be so quick or someone who was so close to where I'm from." He's been messaging Joel's sister, Heidi, offering her and the family as much advice as he can. He was lucky, he said, as he had a family member who spoke Portuguese and was able to translate some of the basics for them. Joel's family are having to hire an interpreter to understand what's happening.
Bev is doing her best too. "I've told Joel's mum I'm here if she needs me – we can have a cry together if she needs to," she said. Seeing another attack on a Welsh holidaymaker has been tough. She said: "My heart goes out to the both of them." She knows all too well how it feels to have a son lying in a hospital bed.
"I was advised to get out there as soon as possible because they couldn't stop the bleeding," Bev said. "We had to believe that things were going to be okay." Bev and her husband, Paul, got in the car and drove to London as soon as they heard Alex was in trouble. They hadn't even booked a flight. "We drove to London with no particular airport in mind," said Bev. "We just knew that with the amount of airports there there was bound to be one with a flight to Portugal." They arrived at Gatwick where they were told the next flight out was from Luton.
As they boarded their flight Bev said she saw a group of boys heading out for a long weekend just like Alex had. They were "excited", she said, and she couldn't help but warn them to be careful. "I said: 'Be very careful, I'm just visiting my son now in hospital, he's been stabbed out there'," she recalled. A member of that party said they knew of someone back home in England who'd also been stabbed in Portugal.
"Alex wished he'd stayed in bed that day," she continued. "He'd had such a good day in the pool. You don't think that something like that is going to happen even if you say as a mum: 'Try and stick together'." Alex's friends had no idea he was in hospital and it was only when Bev called them because neither she nor Leah had heard from him that they became aware that he wasn't in the hotel.
British tourists in Portugal "stick out like a sore thumb", Bev added. "We're a sitting target," she said. "We're there in our sliders and shorts and bags over our shoulders. They can tell we're tourists straightaway."
She said police had told them the incident was robbery with assault, which both Bev and Alex find difficult to accept. "This is no assault," she said. "He was left for dead between cars and a bin." The man who found Alex has her eternal gratitude. "In my eyes he is my hero," Bev added. "We could have been without a son and my grandson could have been without a father."
She wants anyone heading out to Portugal to be aware of the risks. "If you find yourself out of the area take care," she said. "We do stand out as holidaymakers with what we wear and how we are. We've had to deal with the consequences of that." Alex, from Treherbert, added: "The more people know about what can happen the better."
A spokesman for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: "We continue to support two British men and their families who required our assistance in Portugal."
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