By Will Greenlee

PORT ST. LUCIE — Amelia Snyder calls them her “guardian angels,” the two men who came to her aid at a gas station as a 17-year-old grabbed her hair and began a brutal attack.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Snyder, 49, said. “It seemed like forever that he was punching me in the head and the face.”

Snyder said she got off work about 5 p.m. Wednesday from Liberty Medical Supply and stopped for gas at a Hess station on South U.S. 1 near Port St. Lucie Boulevard. Snyder vacuumed out her car and started putting air in her tires.

That’s when the 17-year-old came up to her. The teen later told police that “demons have told him that he is the chosen one and he is to kill everyone that he comes in contact with,” a report states.

“He threw me on the ground and just started punching me,” Snyder said, noting the teen held her hair in his left hand and punched her with his right.

Richard McCoy, 51, was working on the fuel pumps at the gas station and was preparing to leave. He heard Snyder’s screams and saw the teen “just viciously beating her in the face and kicking her.”

“He was really going to town on her,” McCoy said.

McCoy said he grabbed the teen, and the teen “unleashed his fury on me.”

“This guy just went berserk,” McCoy said. “He never stopped throwing punches and kicking the whole time I had a hold of him.”

Meanwhile, Jay Chapman, a 30-year-old Jensen Beach resident, entered the gas station and also jumped into action, helping restrain the teen until police arrived, a report states. Chapman could not immediately be reached for comment.

The teen was committed under provisions of the state’s Baker Act for a psychiatric evaluation. His grandmother told police he was released hours earlier from New Horizons of the Treasure Coast after a one-week stay. The grandmother said the teen had taken his morning dose of medication, but not the afternoon one.

Snyder, an 18-year Port St. Lucie resident, said the teen said nothing to her and never let go of her hair.

Snyder said she stayed home from work Thursday and that the right side of her face is swollen. He lips also are “busted,” among other injuries.

Officer Tom Nichols, Port St. Lucie police spokesman, commended McCoy and Chapman for their actions.

“Others may have opted to not get involved and look the other way,” Nichols said.

Snyder said she can’t praise the men enough.

“They were guardian angels,” she said. “They were heroes.”

This entry was posted on Friday, October 22nd, 2010 at 8:51 am and is filed under Crime, Port St. Lucie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.