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Manitoban wheelchair-user badly beaten in Australia
Heath Proden left for Australia Nov. 11 for a six-month visit with his girlfriend, Kristin Sharrock. (SUBMITTED PHOTO)
The two attackers leave Winnipeg Beach resident Heath Proden on the subway station floor.
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Shellan Proden said she was shocked when she received a call from Australia Tuesday morning with the news that her son Heath had been viciously beaten.
"I was devastated," Proden said. "He was having such a good time there."
The attack on Heath Proden, 35, who uses a wheelchair, has made headlines around the world.
New South Wales police said Proden was waiting for a train following a Doc Walker concert in Sydney, when he was approached and verbally abused by two teenaged boys. Proden tried to leave but was punched in the face and knocked from his wheelchair. Video surveillance of the attack shows the teens stomped on Proden and then hit him with a metal bar they had pried from his wheelchair. They ran off and then returned and beat him some more.
A 16-year-old boy faces assault and robbery charges and a second teenaged boy has turned himself in.
Heath Proden grew up in Portage la Prairie but had been living in Winnipeg Beach with his mother.
Shellan Proden said Heath has been using a wheelchair since he was badly injured in a snowmobile accident 10 years ago.
Proden said Heath had left for Australia Nov. 11 for a six-month visit with his girlfriend, Kristin Sharrock. The couple planned to return to Winnipeg Beach May 7, she said.
Proden said Heath is in hospital awaiting surgery later today to relieve swelling on his brain.
She said she has no immediate plans to leave for Australia but is waiting to see how her son responds to the surgery.
Sharrock told the Sydney Morning Herald that she was disgusted by the attack.
"He is a wonderful, kind, generous individual," Sharrock said. "He's been through a lot in his life and he doesn't deserve what's happened."
Shellan said her son had grown up in Portage with the members of Doc Walker and that was why he went to the band's concert in Sydney that night.
A police spokesman, Commander Superintendent Wayne Cox, told the Sydney Morning Herald the attack had taken between three and five minutes and had been captured on security video as well as being witnessed by a train station employee.
He described the attack as ''a calculated assault.''
''It's one of the most serious attacks I've seen,'' Superintendent Cox said.
''Particularly when you're looking at a person that's confined to a wheelchair.
''It's quite distressing to see these young people come back and assault him on a number of occasions.''
— With files from The Canadian Press, Sydney Morning Herald
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