Greyhound bus passenger: 'I don't consider myself a hero'

Nathan Wanhala's shoes were bloodstained. His finger was wrapped in gauze.

Hours before he stood in front of a Tulare County Sheriff's podium, he helped wrestle down a woman with a knife threatening to kill a 3-year-old girl and her mother.

Wanhala was one of 13 passengers onboard a Greyhound bus headed to Northern California. The trip was cut short at Highway 99 between Tulare and Visalia.

Witnesses said 48-year-old Teresa Madrigal attacked the mother and child, just 45 minutes after leaving the Bakersfield Station on Monday.

Wanhala along with another passenger quickly sprang into action.

"The lady showed her knife and started to get hysterical," Wanhala said. "She started stabbing the mother and that's when I jumped up and tried to grab the knife. I stabbed myself."

Passengers described Madrigal as a "crazy lady."

The mother was stabbed in the ribs with what passengers described as a butcher-style knife. The girl suffered minor injuries to her head when she fell.

Madrigal then turned the knife on herself.

She stabbed herself in the neck and leg, passenger Andrew Smith said. But she continued to fight.

She threatened to kill passengers if the bus driver stopped.

"We finally got [the knife] out of her hand and threw it to the back of the bus," Wanhala said. "I tried to restrain her. I grabbed both of her arms and tried to put them behind her back. There was so blood it was slipping."

The mother, whose name hasn't been released, was rushed to Kaweah Delta Medical Center in Visalia.

"I took off my sweatshirt and tore it in half and applied pressure to the [mother's] gash," Smith said. "She said, 'it hurts real bad.' I said I know and told her it would be OK."

Sheriff Mike Boudreaux called the men and women who rushed to help "heroes" and will be recognized by Tulare County law enforcement.

"I don't consider myself a hero," Wanhala said. "If I were in that same predicament, I hope someone else would help me."

Tulare County detectives were called to the scene at Caldwell Avenue (Avenue 280) and Highway 99. The bus was diverted around 2 p.m., Tulare County Sheriff's Department officials said.

Smith said the driver warned the Madrigal in Bakersfield and said if she continued to be confrontational she wouldn't be allowed back on the bus.

Another passenger, Tanya Wright, said she fell asleep during the ride but woke up to screaming.

"The next thing I heard was 'she has a knife, she has a knife," said Wright, who was heading to Oakland. "The baby reached out to me and I held her the entire time."

The child was 3, Wright said.

The Oakland woman said she never saw a knife but there was blood everywhere.

"The mom had a [cut] on her side," she said, "It was pretty traumatic."

The bus left Bakersfield around 1:15 p.m. and was headed toward Oregon with stops in between.

Deputies along with Tulare County Fire Department paramedics and California Highway Patrol officers were called to assist.

Wanhala was taken back home to Santa Cruz by sheriff's deputies. The child's aunt was flown in, using the sheriff's plane, from Sacramento.

Madrigal was later arrested. Traffic wasn't delayed because of the incident.

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