The 14-year-old boy who was rushed to hospital Tuesday afternoon after being stabbed by an unknown assailant at Sunnidale Park is recovering after undergoing surgery last night.
On Aug. 20 at 5:17 p.m., Barrie police responded to a reported stabbing which had taken place on a walking path near the dog off-leash area, just off Coulter Street.
The teenage victim, Aadyn Williams, was taken to Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) in Barrie and later transported to a Toronto hospital for further treatment of what police called a non-life-threatening injury.
Uniform officers and detectives from the Criminal Investigation Division used available resources, which included establishing a perimeter, conducting a canine track and utilizing a drone in an attempt to locate a suspect, according to police. The investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made.
Aadyn’s mother, Shannon Williams, spoke to BarrieToday from SickKids Hospital in Toronto where her son is being treated.
“He is in a lot of pain from the surgery and he’s sleeping right now, which is the first time since he returned to his room at 1 a.m.” she said while sitting in the hospital’s food court “decompressing."
When Aadyn was first sent to RVH on the day of the attack, hospital staff addressed the wound and did a chest X-ray, then packed him up to be sent to SickKids and told his mother “we’re not really equipped to deal with this.”
Shannon says when he arrived in Toronto, “there was a whole team waiting for him when he got here.”
Medical staff conducted more X-rays and a CT scan. The chest X-ray showed there was fluid in his chest, as he had internal bleeding.
The knife from the attack had gone in between two of his ribs.
“There was a little bit of bleeding, but they were more concerned about the possibility his diaphragm got cut by the knife,” she said.
At 9 p.m. last night, Aadyn underwent surgery, which did reveal his diaphragm had been nicked, which they fixed. It also found the source of the internal bleeding and repaired that as well, along with draining the fluid from his chest, Shannon added.
For Aadyn and his family, it is now “sit and wait,” she said, as doctors want him to try and get up and start walking on his own before being discharged to recuperate at home, which will likely not be today, she added.
All in all, his spirits have remained high for the most part.
“He was doing OK until surgery. He was cracking jokes and being silly,” she said as she started to break down in tears. “But he’s in a lot of pain right now. He’s not his joking self at the moment. He kind of wants everyone to leave him alone.”
As for the motive of the stabbing attack, “all we know right now is he was going to go meet up with friends and was trying to cut through a forest by Sunnidale Park, and a gentleman came out of nowhere, mumbled something like ‘do you think that was funny?’ And then ran at him.”
The man stabbed the boy once in the back.
“My son was able to get away," Shannon said. “He ran back up where he had come from, onto Coulter Street. A woman pulled over and helped him, and there was someone else there helping, too. That’s essentially all we know right now."
The other person was a young woman, walking by, someone who the family knew, and stopped and stayed with him along with the woman who pulled over, she said.
“My son sent me a text message telling me that I needed to come and get him or meet him at the hospital because he was stabbed,” Shannon said. “I had already left the house on my way to Wasaga Beach, so I did a U-turn and made my way to him.
“I have four kids and this child of mine can be a jokester sometimes, and he thinks he’s funny. At first, I didn’t think he was serious, but I need to trust that this is serious, and I did call him and he answered right away. And he was in tears and said ‘I’m not kidding, Mom, this is what happened.'
“When I got there, on Coulter, right behind the Bayfield Mall, fire and EMS had already gotten there, with paramedics checking his vitals and putting a dressing on the wound on his back," she added.
He was then sent to RVH and on to Toronto.
Meanwhile, Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall paid the family a surprise visit at the hospital.
“It was a shock to us,” Shannon said. “He actually had an outing planned ... and they bypassed Wonderland and came to see us.
“I knew the mayor back in high school days, but not very well," she added. "It just shows me his character hasn’t really changed, and that is the type of person he is. And, as a mom, I could genuinely tell he was upset about what happened. We had a good chat with him.”
On Wednesday, Nuttall posted a statement to X (formerly Twitter) addressing the stabbing incident.
“I, like many, want answers to how this could happen and why,” he said in the statement. “I want everyone to know, that when we find out all the facts, all options are on the table when it comes to keeping our community safe.”
‼️ My official statement regarding the recent Sunnidale Park Incident on the evening of August 20, 2024: pic.twitter.com/gbP2dXGGJJ
— Alex Nuttall (@AlexFromBarrie) August 21, 2024
Public safety in Barrie is a hot topic, with many residents and politicians arguing over what could be done to help improve safety in the city.
“It has always been a concern for me with four kids, and three are teenagers, so they want to go out alone without a parent. This has obviously changed my view of that portion, a bit,” Shannon said.
Yesterday's conversation with the mayor was “very eye-opening,” said Shannon, as to what kind of political “red tape” there is with respect to things which are trying to be done to make Barrie a safer place.
“I just try to turn my head when it comes to political stuff. I’d rather just bury my head in the sand, but I’m not blind,” she said. “I’ve seen comments online where people are attacking him and attacking the police.
"This has been very eye-opening in the other direction from that," Shannon added. "I now know that the mayor and the Mayor’s Office, the powers that be, are working on things that are not panning out. That made me feel better (hearing that) about a lot of things."
Shannon has lived in Barrie since she was in the third grade.
“And now I’m almost 40, and the rule was always to come home before the street lights come on," she said. "There were never any of these concerns, and now I track my kids on 360 so I know where they are at all times."
Life360 is one of several GPS tracking phone apps available for families online.
“Talking to the police and the mayor, it did actually make me feel a little bit better about the things that are being talked about, discussed, attempted, to try to make Barrie safer,” Shannon said.
As for the response from the community after the unprovoked attack on her son?
“I am actually floored,” she said. “I have had people reach out to me on Facebook and their messages start with ‘you don’t know me, but … I’m a mom or a dad’. And everybody wants to help; nobody knows how they can help, but they want to help. I’m getting messages from all over the place from people I don’t even know. That has been nice to see and read."
Wednesday afternoon, police were at Sunnidale Park canvassing the area to see if there may have been anyone in the park at the time of the incident, according to police communications co-ordinator Peter Leon this afternoon. He said there is no new information to be released at this time.
Police say they are trying to locate a suspect who is described as a white male, between 30 and 35 years old, standing five-foot-six to five-foot-nine with a medium build, brown eyes and brown hair with a “grown-out buzzcut." He was wearing a baseball hat, white collared button-up shirt and a brown suit vest.
Police have said the incident is believed to be "isolated and unprovoked."
"The General Assignment Unit of the Investigative Services Division is conducting a fulsome and thorough investigation where public safety and the identification of the person responsible remains the primary focus," police stated in a news release issued Thursday afternoon.
"Updates will continue to be provided as the investigation permits, but at present, the (police) service is asking for the patience of our community while we continue to investigate and work to fully verify the sequence of events that transpired," stated the release.
Anyone with information that can assist police, or if you may have witnessed activity in Sunnidale Park or the Sunnidale dog park area near Coulter Street that appeared to out of the ordinary on Tuesday afternoon between 4:30 p.m. and 5:17 p.m., is asked to call police at 705-725-7025, ext. 2129. If you wish to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).
