Police seek unknown man after downtown assault

Frontiersman staff

WASILLA — A man was transported by air ambulance from downtown Wasilla with a head injury following a fight Wednesday afternoon.

Emergency services crews were called to Boundary Street and Herning Avenue in Wasilla at 1:29 p.m., according to Clint Vardeman, deputy director of Emergency Services for the Mat-Su Borough. He said medics were on scene in four minutes.

Vardeman couldn’t tell from the logs if the patient had been hit by a car or assaulted.

But Sgt. Rick Manrique, spokesman for the Wasilla Police Department, cleared that up, saying that the man had wandered into the Grape Tap drunk, prior to business hours and was ejected from business.

No one at the restaurant hurt him and he wound up on the sidewalk where he got into a fight with what Manrique described as an “unknown male.”

That’s where he got hurt. Police were still looking for the unknown male as of Wednesday.

Vardeman said the patient had a head laceration and was transported to Anchorage quickly. The helicopter landed on the pad at nearby fire station 6-1 at Lucille Street and Swanson Avenue.

Manrique said that among the unknowns in the case is the extent of the patient’s injuries. In general, he said, intoxication mixed with head trauma makes it difficult to gauge the seriousness of a patient’s injuries.

Further information on the case was not available, Manrique said, citing department policy regarding the release of information in open cases.