CIA training may have saved clerk

http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S20395.html?cat=1

Joe Thao is lucky to be alive after fighting off an attacker who stabbed him three times at his Minneapolis store late last month.

Friday, through an interpreter, Thao described his near death experience.

"I was trying to hold onto the knife and he just keep hitting me with the knife, and I was being cut," Thao said.

Thao said he thought about offering the man money, but the attacker didn't ask for any and seemed intent on killing him.

But the crook probably didn't know realize he had attacked. Thao is a former soldier in Laos, trained by the CIA during the Vietnam War.

Thao forced the attacker out the door, knowing his only chance was someone spotting the attack.

"If I didn't have any experience, I would have been killed...My family, they would be suffering"

Outside, the attacker stabbed Thao, puncturing his lung, even piercing a heart vessel, before a passerby came along for help just in time.

"I knew that I was going to die cause of the bleeding and if no one got there to help me within five to six minutes, I was going to die," Thao said.

The father of seven expects he will make a full recovery. But he doesn't plan on going back to his store.

Police have a man in custody and Thao says he only asks for justice to be served.