85-Year-Old Hero Rescues Mother and Child from Domestic Violence Attack in France

The woman and her 43-year-old husband often argue, forcing Kacem to wear headphones to fall asleep. That night, around 1 a.m., the woman, unable to take it anymore, asked for help by knocking on his door. She was being chased by her spouse, known to the justice system for domestic violence. "When I opened, the two of them fell into my house, on the floor. She had her hands bloodied," Kacem confides to Sud Ouest.

While the violent husband was trying to strangle the woman with her hair, Kacem tried to block his breathing, which allowed the victim to extricate herself from her aggressor and take refuge in the toilet. Meanwhile, Kacem, who heard their 5-year-old daughter screaming, went to get her when the man stabbed him in the chest. "When she asked me for help, she hadn’t told me he had a knife. I got the little girl and I didn’t realize I was bleeding," the octogenarian recounts.

The husband, under the influence of drugs, eventually fell down the stairs. Kacem calls the firefighters who arrive quickly. "Fortunately he didn’t have a big knife, because he had eight stitches. My father could only get back behind the wheel three weeks ago. He also had psychological after-effects: for a month, he couldn’t sleep anymore," says his eldest daughter Aisha. "I did it for the little one. Since then, she calls me grandpa. She’s too cute," Kacem adds.

Kacem was honored for his heroic act. "A municipal deputy had come by to tell us that we had to mark the occasion some time ago, but we didn’t expect it, it’s nice," says the Moroccan, who received a medal and a certificate of honor at the sub-prefecture. The young woman he saved never stops thanking him. The violent husband, for his part, was sentenced to a year and a half in prison.