A Prince George mechanic attacked in the alley of his downtown Prince George auto repair shop by a thief is recovering at UHNBC with an eye injury after the culprit hit him in the face with a pair of pliers.
The attack happened at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday morning — on Mike Gunther’s 55th birthday — in the back of his shop.
When he arrived for work with his wife, Sherrie, at BST Performance Automotive, at 300 Third Ave., he caught a tall thin man dressed in a hooded black jacket wearing a balaclava and ball cap in the act of stealing a lawnmower from the fenced yard of the adjacent Summit Power Tools.
Video surveillance taken from the tool shop shows the man getting physically aggressive with Gunther but the actual attack happened out of the camera’s range.
It’s not clear whether the man stabbed him with the pliers or threw them at him. Gunther underwent three hours of surgery Wednesday night at UHNBC to stitch up his upper and lower eyelids.
“It severed the tear duct in his eye and peeled back the eyelid skin and they were unable to fix the tear duct in surgery (Wednesday) night,” said Gunther’s daughter, Stephanie Knight.
“Once it heals he’ll have to get sent down to Vancouver to see a plastic surgeon. He can’t see out of his eye right now but they said he will be able to see again, it will just take some time.”
There might be other damage and doctors would not rule out the possibility he could have some permanent damage to his vision.
Summit Power Tools owner Steve Taylor got the call at about 7:15 a.m. Wednesday from the security company that monitors his business to let him know someone was in the yard stealing lawnmowers. By the time he arrived at about 7:45 the attack had already happened and the man had fled on foot.
Taylor watched the video that showed the man attempting to steal the lawnmower and he also had a leaf blower and grass trimmer in his possession when Gunther confronted him. All three items came out of a scrap-metal bin in the yard, set to be turned into scrap.
“The guy got aggressive with Mike and Mike grabbed him and pushed him into one of Trench’s vans,” said Taylor. “The guy was a little bit messed up, you can tell, and they left the camera view and he pulled out some pliers and either threw them or stabbed him and got him in the eye, one end in his eye and the other in his nose.”
Len McNamara, the manager of DART, a landscaping company that’s in the same building, saw the man trying to steal the lawnmower and told him he would have to leave without the lawnmower or he would call the police.
“I was hoping the fact I told him I was going to phone the police that he would leave, like, I wasn’t going to stop him,” said McNamara. “At that point he took his shirt tail and wiped it across the hand mower, I’m assuming to wipe off fingerprints, but I told the cop there would still be prints on the blower and the pliers.”
McNamara was not involved in the struggle.
“Mike was tussling with him and I do remember the kid saying, ‘I’m a minor.’” said McNamara. “Maybe it was in his head, ‘You can’t do this to me because I’m a minor.’
“He stopped momentarily on the road and he turned back as he was yelling at Mike and he said, ‘I know where you live.’ It’s unbelievable that a human life is affected like that with their brain (from using drugs), but they’re dangerous.”
Taylor’ earlier video shows the man at about 6:45 a.m. before he initially got into the yard walking unsteadily on his feet. He then takes out a pipe to smoke something and Taylor said whatever substance he inhaled it must have given him a temporary adrenaline boost that gave the strength to toss a lawnmower over the barbed-wire fence into the alley while standing on a cement structure.
“He could hardly walk, and he was obviously doing meth or crack,” said Taylor. “At 7:15 he’s walking fine and has superpowers. He lifted a 120-pound lawnmower over his head and threw it over the fence, totally fine.”
Summit Power Tools and Trench Brewing, across the alley, each recorded video of the attack that was collected by the RCMP. An employee of Allen’s Scrap Metal on Second Avenue also witnessed the incident and drove Gunther to the hospital.
No arrest has been made.
Prince George RCMP swarmed the area and brought in a dog team and the helicopter but despite an intensive search they were unable to find the man.
Taylor has operated his business there for several years and the building he shares with the Gunthers is across the street from the 43-unit transitional residence complex BC Housing opened in late December.
Taylor has had numerous machines stolen from his yard over the years and has had to invest in an elaborate security system. But he said there were no issues for several months starting in April 2024 when construction of the BC Housing complex began and the company building it, Datoff Construction, hired 24-hour security on the site. The camp opened in late December and this past February Taylor started getting those intruder calls again and there’s been a noticeable increase in undesirable visitors in the area.
“Now that the weather’s warmer you’re seeing them a lot more during the day,” Stephanie said. “But we’ve never had an incident like this. Word has gotten around with all the small businesses checking in, and none of them are happy.”
Gunther is self-employed and is the only mechanic at the shop. His son was able to take time off his job at Brandt Tractor to fill in for him. On Thursday, Knight was telling Gunther’s customers he likely will be off work for at least the next two weeks.
Taylor said a video surveillance system was recording Monday at 12:30 p.m. as a man and a woman rode up on bikes to the same spot where Gunther was attacked. The man is shown breaking into the truck’s passenger door and starting the engine before the two of them threw their bikes into the back and drove off.
Taylor was on the phone to police reporting the break-in and theft before they left the scene but they were gone by the time the RCMP got there. The white Chevy pickup was later located near LC Gunn Park.
