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A Vancouver man lost a tooth and suffered a broken nose after he stood up to a man who was deliberately coughing on people outside a downtown SkyTrain station Thursday afternoon.

“I think he was just a thug with a chip on his shoulder who was out messing with people,” Colin Knowles, 46, said of his attacker.

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Knowles was exiting the Granville SkyTrain station after work when he noticed a man strolling along Granville Street purposely coughing on strangers.

“I’m hyper conscious of COVID right now, I’m really paranoid about COVID, and I was actually putting on hand sanitizer when I saw this guy coughing on people,” said Knowles. “As he’s coming towards me, he sees that I’m putting the hand sanitizer on and he steps right into my space and coughs directly in my face.”

The two men exchanged expletives, and Knowles says he used his arm to push the man away from him.

“And then he started punching me in the face,” said Knowles.