Updated at 2:21 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – An argument over leaving garbage at a Glenoma campsite is what reportedly sparked a stabbing that sent a 40-year-old man to Harborview Medical Center yesterday.
Deputies called just after 5 p.m. to the Dog Patch campground at the base of Dog Mountain found the victim with a stab wound to his abdomen, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
Chief Deputy Stacy Brown said the weapon was a large Rambo-style knife.
The suspect and two companions fled in a white van and were ultimately located on a logging road across from Kosmos Road, Brown said.
Brown said the victim and witnesses said an argument broke out between the occupants of a Ohio license-plated car and the Florida-plated van about the subjects in the two cars leaving the trash behind.
The victim, a 40-year-old from Los Angeles, California, was immediately transported to Morton General Hospital and then airlifted to Seattle, according to Brown. His condition this morning is unknown, as the sheriff’s office last information is from 11 o’clock last night, when he was still in surgery.
The victim said the suspect came at him and stabbed him, Brown said. The suspect said it was self defense, she said.
Theodore D Pojman, 21, from Ocoee, Florida, was arrested for first-degree assault and booked into the Lewis County Jail. Prosecutors are not filing criminal charges today, pending further investigation.