Motorist stabbed during road-rage incident

MIDDLEBURG, Fla. – The Clay County Sheriff's Office is looking for the driver of an SUV who stabbed a man during a road-rage incident on Blanding Boulevard on Sunday night.

According to the incident report, a young woman was driving north on Blanding about 7:45 p.m. when she inadvertently cut off a Ford Explorer. The man driving the SUV then drove in front of the woman's Kia Soul and slammed on the brakes.

Brandon Ray, the 29-year-old boyfriend of the Kia's driver jumped out of the passenger side of her car and the driver got out of the SUV and the two began fighting in the middle of the northbound lane of Blanding. The woman said she covered her 3-year-old son so he wouldn't see the fight.

When the woman got back into her car, she said the SUV driver ran up and stabbed Ray in the chest and upper shoulder, then ran back to his vehicle and drove away.

"I just couldn't believe he stabbed me," Ray said from his hospital bed Monday. "I went and got in the car to drive off so that way we could get a safe distance away and call the police, and next thing you know, he was at my window stabbing me."

Brandon Ray took this selfie as he is recovering in the trauma center at UF Health Jacksonville.

"Granted, there are probably a couple things different I could have done, but everything happened so fast," Ray added. "I thought about my family and wanted to make sure he wasn't capable of getting close to them."

The woman drove Ray to St. Vincent's Medical Center to get treatment.  Authorities said Ray was stabilized and transferred to UF Health Jacksonville with a collapsed lung caused by the puncture wound.

"They're waiting to see if they can take the vacuum out my lungs, that way I won't have that thing attached to me anymore," Ray said. "They're waiting to see if my lungs will hold up on their own."

The Sheriff's Office describes the attacker as a Hispanic man, 5 feet 9 inches tall with a groomed beard.  He was wearing a gray T-shirt at the time and driving a 1990 or 1991 dark Explorer.

"It was something stupid that probably could've been prevented in a bunch of ways," Ray said.

Anyone with information about the SUV driver is asked to call the Clay County Sheriff's Office at 904-264-6512 or Crime Stoppers at 866-845-TIPS.