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A photographer who was stabbed during a wedding reception in southern Maine last month is on the road to recovery.
Donald Halsing, 26, of Marlborough, Massachusetts, recounted the harrowing experience during an interview with the Boston Globe.
Halsing was taking photographs at the reception at Kingsley Camp Ground in Raymond about 7:03 p.m. on May 23 when 26-year-old Andrew Manderson approached him. Halsing told the Globe that Manderson was asking him questions, something not unusual while photographing weddings.
But Manderson then pulled out a knife and, in what the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office has described as an “unprovoked attack,” allegedly stabbed Halsing.
“I looked down, and I saw a hole in my stomach. And I said, ‘That’s not very good,’” Halsing told the Globe.
Manderson, a cousin of the bride, was quickly located and taken into custody without incident, the sheriff’s office said last month.
He was charged with elevated aggravated assault and taken to the Cumberland County Jail in Portland. He has since been released on $50,000 bail and was scheduled to appear in court in October.
Halsing made his way to the stage, where he called out for help. Several guests and members of the wedding party were trained medical professionals, who Halsing credited with saving his life.
“Without them, I very easily could have died,” he told the Globe.
Halsing spent five days in the hospital, and the attack will leave him with a foot-long scar running from his sternum down to his belly button, according to the Boston newspaper.
Halsing and his fiancee, Ashley Wall, have been working as wedding photographers to cover the cost of their own wedding, which is going ahead this September. Wall was there when Halsing was stabbed, and despite being grievously wounded, Halsing’s first priority was ensuring Wall was well.
“Last weekend was really awful, but it goes to show that we really do love each other. We are going to look out for each other forever,” he told the Globe.