Man injured in brutal knife attack on Greyhound bus

TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD/Gray News) – A man from Arizona was seriously injured in a knife attack on a Greyhound bus in New Mexico last week.

Jorge Quintanilla was riding the bus from Alamagordo, New Mexico, to the Old Pueblo on Sept. 29 when he was attacked.

The New Mexico Department of Public Safety said 29-year-old Ryan Kenny was arrested on a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Quintanilla and his sister Adriana Velasquez said they are now asking for help to find the woman who saved Quintanilla’s life moments after the stabbing.

“We just grabbed everything and started driving towards him,” Velasquez said. “Because we didn’t know what was going on.”

The Greyhound bus was between Lordsburg and Deming when Quintanilla was attacked.

“I had suddenly heard somebody moving quickly on the other side of the aisle from me,” he said. “When I looked over, it was this guy who was lunging across the aisle with what at the time I thought was a pen. And he stabbed me straight in the neck, and then after that, I was able to grab his wrist and was trying to push him off me, and in that time, he kept stabbing and jabbing, and it was more towards the head.”

Quintanilla was stabbed six times in the head, neck and arm. He had to be airlifted to a hospital in El Paso to have his injuries treated.

While he is expected to recover, the unprovoked attack has shaken his family is similar to another public attack on public transportation in North Carolina.

In August, 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska was fatally stabbed while riding a light train in Charlotte.

“Iryna’s Law” was signed into law after Zarutska’s death. A big part of the bill is bringing back the death penalty in North Carolina.

“I had just seen it on TV, and I had seen it all over social media, and that was scary enough,” Velasquez said. “The poor girl. She had no help. Nobody noticed what had happened with her attacker, and they just left her there, and so that’s the first thing that came to my mind when I thought about that too.”

Quintanilla said everyone at the hospital was comparing the attack on him to what happened to Zarutska.

“All day I was getting compared to her,” he said. “The paramedics, the cops, the nurses, the doctors, while I was at the hospital, everybody was comparing me to her, and it wasn’t until I saw the video the next day that I realized, yeah, that’s exactly how it went down, it’s pretty much exactly how it went down. Somebody just decided to grab a knife and attack me.”

Kenny is being held without bond in the Grant County Detention Center.

KOLD reached out to Greyhound to find out how Kenny was able to get a knife onto the bus. On its website, the company said alcohol, drugs and weapons are all prohibited from being brought onto the bus.

“We are unable to comment on the details of this incident as it involves a law enforcement investigation,” the company replied. “The safety of our passengers and employees is always our top priority, and we are providing all necessary assistance to authorities.”

Quintanilla’s family, however, wants to focus on the good outcome after the attack, due to the unknown woman who jumped in to help stop the bleeding.

“I keep calling her my guardian angel because she was an absolute commander,” Quintanilla said. “Without her, I don’t believe I would have made it the 20 minutes that it took for the paramedics to get there.”

Velasquez said she wants to thank the woman for saving her brother.

“She saved his life. If it wasn’t for her, who knows what could have happened to my brother,” she said. “(I) am so thankful to her. Thank you so much, whoever you are.”

Anyone who might know who the mystery woman who helped save Quintanilla’s life can put her into contact with Quintanilla and Velasquez through KOLD’s Mary Coleman at mary.coleman@kold.com.