Help Woodie with his medical costs

The American Press carrier who was brutally attacked last week has been released from a Shreveport hospital, but he still faces a long road to recovery.

Woodie Blanks, 67, will have a different Christmas experience this year than usual after sustaining serious injuries from an attack last week while delivering a newspaper to a longtime customer.

“I’m feeling a little better today, it’s the first day that I’ve really experienced some improvement, but I don’t know if that will continue. I’m just trying to take things one day at a time right now,” Blanks stated.

Blanks was the victim of a senseless attack that occurred while he was delivering a newspaper to a regular customer the early morning of Dec. 17.

Blanks had previously been asked by the customer, an elderly man with health issues, to bring the paper to his door, rather than his mailbox. Blanks said it was something he did often and nothing was out the ordinary when he parked his truck, left it running, and then bundled up before walking to the door with newspaper in hand.

At the door, the homeowner greeted him and the two engaged in a short conversation before Blanks turned and began walking back down the driveway to his truck.

At that moment, Blanks said two vehicles pulled up on either side of the driveway, one behind his truck and the other in front of it. He also noticed the men who exited the vehicles had turned off his own truck and removed the keys.

What Blanks did not know was that the elderly homeowner had experienced prowlers on his property recently, and the men who approached Blanks falsely believed he was the prowler.

“They asked me what I was doing there. I told them I was delivering the paper, like I had been for the past three years. I told them to go ask the man, that he would tell them who I was. That’s when they blindsided me. One of them hit me and knocked me to the ground. They kept hitting me,” Blanks said.

The homeowner was eventually able to call the men off of Blanks, who said they gave him back his keys and allowed him to leave. He immediately drove away and called the Rosepine Police Department, reporteding the incident.

Immediately after Blanks reported the attack, authorities called an ambulance for his visible serious injuries, and he was transported first to Beauregard Health in DeRidder and then to Shreveport where he underwent surgery on both eyes.

Blanks still has a great amount of swelling in his face. Some teeth are loose, his mind is “foggy" at times, and his vision is blurry in his right eye. Things are much more serious in his left eye. Doctors were forced to partially remove the pupil from Blanks’ left eye, and it remains undetermined if he will ever regain vision in that eye.

“Christmas will be a little different this year. I won’t be able to see it the way I have in the past, but I’m still going to enjoy it,” Blanks stated.