“I could walk by him within a foot and never know it,” he said.

It took the man about 15 minutes to get to his home.

Const. Jeniffer Sidhu said the man received nine stitches to his neck, but his injuries are not life-threatening.

A visually-impaired man was robbed and had his throat slashed while walking home around 12:30 a.m. Saturday after spending the evening with friends.

The man, who asked to be identified as Brian, said in his 57 years he has heard of incidents like this happening but never anticipated it would happen to him.

Brian got off a TTC bus near Morningside Avenue and Beath Street, north of Kingston Road, before taking a shortcut home.

Because there were no sidewalks, he was walking along the edge of the street when he bumped the front of a car and dropped his mobility cane.

He said the momentum of his fall resulted in him touching the hood of the car.

That was when a man accused Brian of touching his car.

“He wanted to know what I was doing to his car,” he said.

Brian tried to walk past him, but the man reached out with a knife and slashed his throat.

“I just kept walking,” Brian said.

He said he could feel the air on the exposed wound, but only felt the blood as he started to walk away.

The man then came up to Brian a second time, demanding money.

Brian said there was a bit of an exchange and he finally gave over his wallet.

He was trying to put as much distance between himself and the man as possible.

“Keep walking. Keep walking. Keep walking. Just get away,” he told himself.

The man followed him for a third time and stole his mobility cane.

Brian was concerned about where the man was and how he was going to get home. He thought to himself, “Am I going to be able to walk away?”

He knew the man was somewhere behind him.

It took Brian about 15 minutes to get home, sticking to main streets so the man wouldn’t know where he lived.

Brian used to have a German Shepherd guide dog named Jessica but she recently went into retirement.

“I miss her very much,” said Brian. It was a tough decision for him to retire Jessica but he is planning on getting another guide dog in September.

Once Brian arrived home, he called police. Paramedics took him to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and he received nine stitches.

Emilio Georgiev, 22, of Mississauga is charged with robbery, assault causing bodily harm and failure to comply with recognizance.

Brian said he has to get his life back to normal.

“I just have to get my life back to normal as quick as I can,” he said.

He’s confident in his ability to get around, but doesn’t know if the man who attacked him lives in the neighbourhood.

“I could walk by him within a foot and never know it,” he said.