 Rene Bonito is charged with assault for stabbing a man in what police called a road-rage incident. He says it was self-defence. (TRACY MCLAUGHLIN/SUN MEDIA
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BARRIE -- It was a hot, frustrating day two years ago when hundreds of drivers were trapped on Hwy. 400 after a fatal crash following a deadly racing incident.
Stuck in the traffic snarl, Stephen Webb ended up stabbed in the back in an apparent road-rage incident, court heard yesterday.
"I thought I was going to die," Webb told Justice Peter Howden in a non-jury trial.
On trial for dangerous driving, aggravated assault and possession of a weapon is Rene Bonito, 34, of Hamilton.
Bonito admits to stabbing Webb but insists it was in self-defence.
Court heard the incident started when vehicles were being funneled off the highway in a steady stream at the Canal Rd. ramp because of the fatal accident June 17, 2007, when suddenly things went from bad to worse.
Webb testified traffic was almost at a standstill on the ramp when suddenly Bonito's gold Toyota went off onto the gravel shoulder and whipped by all of the vehicles.
The Toyota slammed into a van and the two vehicles started a "cat and mouse" game with each other, he said. "They were side-swiping and passing each other," Webb said. "It was like bumper cars or something you would see on a movie."
The van made a U-turn and "took off," forcing Webb's vehicle to pull over. Webb got out to write down the licence plate of Bonito's car.
"But he started kicking gravel in my face. Then we got into a shoving match," Webb said. Punches flew, and he felt a sharp pain in his back. "I felt something warm running down my back."
Bonito then ran off into the field "as if he were hiding something," Webb said and he made his way back to his vehicle where a co-worker headed back to the highway accident scene to find police.
"I was hyperventilating. I was scared," he testified. "I was in too much pain to write down the licence plate, I just kept repeating it in my head."
Back on Hwy. 400, police and an off-duty firefighter applied pressure to his knife wound and Webb was rushed to Sunnybrook Hospital in critical condition where he underwent surgery to repair an artery close to his heart.
The trial continues today.
One of three accused in the racing incident that caused the highway to be shut down after truck driver David Virgoe was killed was found guilty by a jury on Saturday following a lengthy trial.
