Good Samaritan jumps between stranger and machete-wielding attacker

A good Samaritan at a Bakersfield, California, Starbucks franchise risked his life to protect a woman from a machete attack by her ex-boyfriend earlier this month.

What are the details?

According to KGET-TV, 27-year-old Blaine Hodge and a friend were sitting at a Starbucks on Sept. 9 when the unnamed woman came running into the store, clearly terrified.

The woman's ex, 31-year-old Robert Daniel Rivas, was maniacally chasing her — in public — with a machete in hand, witnesses said.

When Hodge and his friend, Joe Harris, saw the woman run into the Starbucks, it was easy to see that she was in a frenzy.

"She was panicked," Harris said. "She was saying 'Help me,' and then at one point she said, 'This guy's going to kill me.'"

At that point, no man could be seen, but he'd make his entrance shortly thereafter.

"A man came in," Harris said. "He was holding something in his hand. I had no idea what he was holding."

The man — who police later identified as Rivas, who'd had trouble in the past for domestic violence — was carrying a machete.

"Everyone else was running away and [Hodge] was the first person to run straight to the action," Harris said of his friend. "He was like, 'I'm going to stop this guy, regardless if I get stabbed or not. I can't let this woman die.'"

And he was stabbed a lot — but Hodge did end up saving the woman's life.

According to the station, Hodge received "deep cuts to both hands," as well as arms and knee lacerations. It took about 200 stitches to close the wounds that were inflicted by Rivas' machete.

Hodge's friends weren't at all surprised that he jumped in front of the woman, who was injured during the attack, to save her life.

Hodge's girlfriend, Tori Toney, said, "I believe that he took a machete to the hands for someone else, that's not surprising."

"That's just Blaine," Toney and Hodge's friends said.

What else?

In an interview from his hospital bed, Hodge said, "There was a person in danger, and I couldn't just let her die."

A GoFundMe page was set up to benefit Hodge after news of his heroism went viral. The crowdfunding page has received more than $53,000. The initial goal was $9,000.

Police charged Rivas with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and resisting arrest. Rivas pleaded not guilty at his arraignment.