Two staff injured in a stabbing at Countdown on Dunedin's Cumberland St are "doing OK", the supermarket chain's general manager says.
An emotional Kiri Hannifin told Breakfast the staff were "doing OK" after having surgery.
She said she went straight to the hospital last night and learned they were in surgery, but is in contact with their families.
If the injured staff members were OK to see her this morning, Hannifin said she was looking forward to that.
Hannifin said she had watched the footage of the stabbing and described it appearing to be a "completely unprovoked attack" on one of their team members.
Another staff member and customers were injured as "the rest unfolded" in what she described as "the worst day".
"I have to say it was completely overwhelming. The whole thing - it's incredibly traumatic and horrific."
She said yesterday the community had cared for Countdown.
"The bravery and courage of customers who intervened to save our staff is quite amazing and I'm incredibly humbled by that and I'm devastated they've been injured."
With it being "very chaotic" in the store yesterday, Hannifin said staff would be receiving help from trauma specialists.
"This is not just a one-day kind of thing to recover from. It will take a long time," she said.
"You don't go shopping to witness this, you don't go shopping to try and save people's lives, you don't come to work to be stabbed."
In the wake of this, Hannifin said the recovery would be long.
"I don't know what we'll do to recover from this, but we'll certainly do what we can."
She said Countdown would "absolutely" look at providing staff with body cameras following trials in Australia.
"It's a pretty sad day that it's come to this, but it looks like it's inevitable in some of our stores."
This came amid "quite a significant increase" in public aggression against staff since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"I really want to capture the terrible verbal abuse that our team receive, especially the racism."
Starting to visibly break down, Hannifin said Countdown was "like a family".
"It feels pretty bad when your people aren't safe. It's awful. These are people's dads, mums, sisters."
A 42-year-old man has been charged with four counts of attempted murder over the stabbings.
He is due to appear in the Dunedin District Court today.
SHARE ME