A survivor of the bloody attack on Hanukkah celebrants in Monsey described a harrowing confrontation with the machete-wielding madman — who threatened him before fleeing the scene.
Josef Gluck, 32, said he came face-to-face with alleged attacker Grafton Thomas, 37, while helping others escape the Hanukkah-party carnage.
“I grabbed a small coffee table that was by the door,” Gluck said, according to video posted on the Voz Is Neias? website.
“I threw it at him. I kept on screaming, ‘He’s coming! Run away! Run away, everybody! He’s coming! He’s coming!’ He said, ‘Hey you, I’ll get you!'”
Gluck said he leaped into action when he saw the incident unfold during Saturday night’s gathering in the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, where five people were stabbed.
“He came into the front room, the coat room, and I was in the dining room, on the left side,” Gluck said.
Josef GluckRichard Harbus“And the guy came in with a big machete or a sword, and he started swinging, back and forth, to try to hit people. And I started pushing out people. We all started to run out.”
Gluck also recalled seeing a victim who was too wounded to escape.
“I saw an old guy, bleeding from his head. I said, ‘Come out.’ He said, ‘I’m bleeding, I can’t,'” Gluck said.
Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan
