FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – For the first time, a South Florida Amazon driver who was ambushed on the job is speaking about his ordeal. Just days before Christmas, while making deliveries, he was suddenly robbed and stabbed.
Tears welled up in the eyes of Damian Marquez as he described the terrifying moments he was attacked after his Amazon delivery truck became disabled in Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 7.
While being Tasered, stabbed, and beaten, all he could think of was his wife and two little girls.
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“All I was thinking of was making it home to my family,” he said.
Marquez recounted, “As soon as I came into the door, he came right behind me.”
After 7:30 p.m., Marquez got a flat tire in the 1100 block of Northwest 10th Terrace.
After assessing the damage and ending a call with his dispatcher, his attacker, identified by police as 33-year-old Curtis Gardner, Tasered him, demanding the keys to his truck.
“I was trying to give him the keys because at the end of the day the car doesn’t belong to me. I just wanted to make it home safe, but he got the knife and started stabbing me,” Marquez explained.
Although Marquez managed to run off, he was badly hurt, suffering more than a half-dozen stab wounds, injuries from the beating and a collapsed lung.
“I went to one of the houses nearby to try and find help, but no one opened the door for me,” he said.
Eventually, he reached the Fiesta Food Market on Sunrise Boulevard, where employees called for help. Gardner was arrested more than a week later.
Marquez and his attorney have since filed a workers’ compensation claim, arguing that more needs to be done to protect drivers delivering packages in high-crime areas. They suggest that an Amazon Locker in this Fort Lauderdale location is necessary.
As Marquez works to recover from an attack that could have taken a father from his two daughters and a husband from his wife, he has a message for the man who nearly killed him: “As a son of God, I forgive him for what he did. I don’t see him as a person; I see him as the evil behind him.”
As for Gardner, the justice system is unlikely to be as forgiving. He faces several charges, including felony attempted murder.
Amazon responded to the incident with a statement emphasizing that drivers should never make a delivery if they feel unsafe.