Supermarket manager Claudio Soares dos Santos, 40, was chatting away on the phone, when the husband of one of his employees battered him with a shovel in Brazil on January 18
Brazil: Husband attacks wife’s boss with a shovel
A supermarket manager has said that his mobile phone saved his life when the husband of a disgruntled employee whacked him around the head with a shovel.
Claudio Soares dos Santos, 40, was talking on the phone when he was attacked by the man in Sinop, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, on Saturday, 18th January, at around 7:30pm.
The video shows the suspect, 29-year-old Danielson Martins Paiva, walking up to a shelf with shovels for sale in the supermarket and picking one up. He then heads over to where the store manager is standing and speaking on the phone and whacks him around the head with the shovel, instantly flooring him and apparently briefly knocking him out.
He is then wrestled to the ground and was held there until the police arrived to arrest him, while the store manager eventually gets back to his feet. The victim suffered injuries to his head, ear and hearing.
Claudio, who has been released from hospital and is now recovering from his injuries at home, said that had he not been holding his phone over his ear, he would have been hit directly in the head by the shovel.
He explained: “I never expected something like this to happen. I only left the hospital at the end of Sunday. He really wanted to kill me and what saved me was my mobile phone, which shattered inside my ear and I had to get stitches. But it was the phone that protected me from the blow.”
Paiva, who was arrested immediately after the attack, told police that he attacked Claudio after hearing complaints from his wife, who is also an employee at the supermarket, about the manager.
Claudio denies having had any contact with the attacker’s wife. He said: “I have no contact with the employees, but I always address the team leaders.
“In the morning, I spoke with a team leader about the supply issue. She was the one who spoke with the employee, and I don’t know how she conveyed that information. I think she told her husband that I had harassed her, but I had no contact with this employee.”
It is still unclear what his wife had complained about exactly. Paiva is being held in preventive detention. The investigation is ongoing.
