by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Dec 10/97) - A Rankin Inlet man stabbed in the chest is lucky to be alive after a Good Samaritan heard his calls for help.

Responding to hamlet councillor candidate Dawson Milley's report Nov. 29, police found 38-year-old Dean Andrews covered in blood at his home. They have since arrested a woman and charged her with aggravated assault.

Milley said he came across the scene while out campaigning in Area 5 with his 11-year-old son, Devon. When he came to Andrew's house, found a man had been stabbed and in desperate need of medical attention.

"I knocked on the door that was partially open," he said. "It fell open and I stepped over the threshold and said 'hello,' and the response that came back to me was 'call an ambulance.'"

Milley said he didn't want to go inside because he had spotted a trail of blood just inside the door and knew there was trouble.

"I didn't want to go inside because my son was with me," he said.

RCMP Const. Ken Foster, one of two officers who responded to a call for help just after 9 p.m., said Andrews was medivaced to Churchill, Man., with a single stab wound after the incident.

Last week, he was still in hospital recovering a serious wound that punctured a lung and just missed his heart.

Foster also said that Andrews, who is originally from Newfoundland and moved to Rankin from Yellowknife, came close to losing his life, but is in stable condition in hospital.

"He is fine and will make it through, but it was a serious stab wound -- a few millimetres and it could have been fatal," he said. Police believe that the stabbing occurred sometime around supper time or just after.

While the Mounties aren't releasing many details about the weapon, Foster said it was likely a knife.

Andrews was found sitting on the couch in the living room with a large amount of blood around him. Foster said alcohol is believed to have been a factor. This wasn't the first stabbing in Rankin Inlet this year. "I'm not sure exactly how many, but there have been several," he said.

The accused woman is scheduled to make her first court appearance Dec. 16 in Rankin Inlet.