Scott Harris: Navy veteran receives 100 stitches after being mugged while walking dog in Philadelphia
BREWERYTOWN, PHILADELPHIA: Scott Harris, a 62-year-old retired Navy commander, was left with a brain injury and at least 100 stitches after being attacked and robbed while walking with his dog near a Philadelphia park.
Harris noted that he was walking with his dog Nora at around 11:30 pm on Saturday, August 26 when he noticed a crowd gathered at a park in the Brewerytown neighborhood of the city.
“There was a large party going on across the street, that in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have walked near, and the next thing I remember I’m in the emergency room because I kind of just blacked out after that,” Harris told Fox 29.
As Harris walked past the crowd, he was attacked by at least one person, who knocked him unconscious and stole his wallet, police stated.
Why was Scott Harris attacked?
The motive behind the attack is yet unclear as police continue to investigate the case to arrest the attacker. In a police complaint, Harris stated that he had no money inside his wallet but it was holding something more valuable.
“Sadly, the only thing I really cared about in that wallet was my mother’s driver’s license,” Harris told NBC 10, adding, “She passed about 10 years ago. That’s kind of how I kept her close and now I don’t even have that.”
A security camera outside of Harris' flat caught footage of some Good Samaritans escorting him and Nora back to his house where his partner was waiting after the incident.
“They brought him back, otherwise I don’t know what would have happened,” Joseph Hurchick told Fox 29. “We were on the stoop and he was just bleeding, I was on the phone with 911, I didn’t know where the blood was coming from, I didn’t know if he was stabbed.”
“Thank God, you know, there are good people,” Harris told the outlet. “And maybe they’re mixed up with some people that aren’t so nice. And they just saw a human being in need and brought me back safely.”
What injuries did Scott Harris sustain as a result of the attack?
Harris was later rushed to a nearby hospital, where he received treatment for the next three days. At the hospital, doctors told the Navy veteran that he had suffered a brain injury, broken teeth, and swelling and bruising to the face, along with at least 100 stitches.
“The surgeon said he stopped counting at a hundred stitches, but a lot of them are inside my mouth,” he asserted.
Harris expressed that he has spent a number of years serving in the military and has been deployed abroad, but his tours were nothing in comparison to his walk this weekend.
“I did a year in a war zone in Iraq, did 2 years in Ukraine, and would not have expected this to happen in my own neighborhood,” he said, adding that he adopted Nora from Ukraine.