HALLOWELL — Police continued to investigate into Monday evening the circumstances that led to one man being treated in a local hospital for apparent stab wounds.
Police Chief Eric Nason said investigators were still in the midst of gathering details, but he confirmed that one man had been taken by ambulance to MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta with stab wounds. Nason said the wounds did not appear to be life threatening.
The stabbing was reported around 2:50 p.m. Monday after the bleeding man walked into Dom’s Barber Shop, said barber Julie Keithley. The man told Keithley and several customers that he had been stabbed inside the Hallowell Cemetery about a half mile away on State Street near the Augusta city line.
“He just walked in,” Keithley said. “He asked if he could use the phone.”
But Nason said Monday evening that “if there was a crime that occurred” it apparently took place in Farmingdale. Nason said his department was working with the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office to determine exactly what happened and where.
Keithley said the man, whom she gauged to be in his 20s, was bleeding from a stab wound in his neck and in his abdomen.
Keithley said she didn’t know the man’s name but she did recognize him.
“He’s a customer of ours,” she said. “He comes in to get his hair cut all the time.”
John Gates, who was waiting with a friend for a haircut, helped the man to an open corner of the barber shop near the entrance so he could lay down.
“He was going into shock,” Gates said, adding the man never lost consciousness.
Gates said the man was holding a paper cloth to the wound in his abdomen and was using a shirt to try and stem the bleeding in his neck.
“He just said he’d been stabbed,” Gates said.
He said the man entered the shop quietly and asked to use the phone. His entry was so serene that it took Keithley, Gates and the others a couple of moments to realize the man was injured and bleeding.
“He was very calm,” Gates said. “A little bit too calm.”
Gates helped Keithley clean up the blood from the barbershop floor and offered advice about how to safely clean the towels. Keithley never imagined she’d have to know how to clean up after a stabbing. “It’s scary that it’s right here in Hallowell,” she said.
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