‘I remember him threatening my wife and my unborn baby, and I don’t stand for that. Then he said he was going to kill us all and came at me with a knife,’ says Orillia man
What began as a quiet July night outside an Orillia hotel quickly escalated into a violent confrontation that nearly cost a man his life and altered the course of his young family’s future.
Ryan Lawes, 43, had moved to Orillia from Oshawa a year earlier with his wife, Holly Cahill, and their three boys. The couple was expecting the birth of their daughter when everything changed in an instant.
Cahill recalls the moment a stranger’s cry for help drew her attention outside the Knights Inn, where her family has been living since September 2024, on West Street South.
“There was a young male who was with a middle-aged female. They were walking by the Knights Inn, and he yelled for help,” Cahill said.
“So, I went running out to make sure everybody was OK, and he ended up threatening to kill me. He yelled that he was going to slit my throat with a fishing rod, and he came at me.
“He then decided to tell me that he was going to cut my stomach open and rip my baby out and kill it. I was 36 weeks pregnant at the time.”
Cahill says her husband heard the threat and stepped in to protect her.
“I remember him threatening my wife and my unborn baby, and I don’t stand for that,” Lawes recalled. “Then he said he was going to kill us all and came at me with a knife.”
Ryan Lawes was intubated at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto after emergency surgery. He says his family was called to say goodbye before doctors managed to save his life. Supplied photo
A fight ensued, and Lawes says he was stabbed four times, and ended up lying on the ground in front of the hotel, fighting for his life.
“I had everybody from the OPP trying to keep all my guts inside,” he said. “I remember going into the ambulance and my vision got pixelated before I passed out. I assumed I was dying.”
The wounds were catastrophic. Lawes says one stab punctured his lung, while three more tore into his intestines, kidney and bowels. The blade, an eight-inch filleting knife, pierced his small intestine so deeply that it burst, spilling toxins into his body.
Lawes says he was rushed to Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital before being flown to St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.
Cahill, heavily pregnant, made the trips back and forth from Orillia to Toronto to care for her children, while fearing her husband would not survive.
“Ryan ended up having to get a repair done on his small intestine, and they had to remove inches from it as well,” she said.
“They had to do a full abdominal cavity washout because of all the toxins that were in there. He ended up with flesh-eating disease, and they caught it within a minimum of eight hours. If it were any longer, he would not have survived.”
Lawes remembers the moment doctors told him the infection could kill him within hours.
“At 14 hours, it can kill you, and we were at hour eight when they found it,” he said. “They were cutting the staples out of my stomach and putting their fingers into my abdomen while I was still awake to see how bad it was. I’m quite lucky to be alive.”
His condition was so grave that Lawes says his family was called to say goodbye.
“They called my mom, my dad and my sister and told them to come,” he said. “My mom lives on Vancouver Island. They called her to come say goodbye to me.”
Doctors managed to save him, but the impact has been devastating. He says he now lives with constant pain, wears a wound vacuum dressing, and needs daily visits from a home care nurse.
“I’ve lost my business and my ability to work,” he said. “I owned my own drywall company for 20 years. Now my day consists of waking up and then napping again to trying and heal. I’m on nine different medications just to make it through the day.”
The psychological scars are just as deep.
“I close my eyes at night and that’s all I can see, is him stabbing me,” Lawes said. “I’m now suffering from panic attacks, and I’ve never had a panic attack in my life. I don’t want to go outside anymore because strangers make me very leery.”
Cahill says the ordeal has been agonizing for their children, as well as her as she braced for childbirth alone. Against all odds, Lawes was transferred back to Orillia in time for the birth of their daughter.
“He originally wasn’t going to make it to the birth of our daughter,” Cahill said. “We ended up having her a day after our due date so that he could be there for it. I don’t know how we managed to, but we did.”
For Lawes, the motivation to keep fighting came from his family.
“It was for my wife and my unborn daughter,” he said. “I wasn’t ready to give up on life and our three boys. I’ve got too much life to live.”
But life is no longer the same. He says he has not yet been able to hold his newborn daughter, he can’t work, and he struggles daily with post-traumatic stress disorder and short-term memory loss. His sense of security in his new community is gone.
“This wasn’t a random bar fight,” he said. “It wasn’t something dumb. It wasn’t something provoked. This was me defending my family. It could have happened to anyone, another couple, or even a kid.”
The family says they received financial support from North Simcoe Victim Services, which they are grateful for, but the financial, emotional and physical toll has been overwhelming.
“It’s been detrimental to my family to the point where I’m now forced into retirement,” Lawes said. “I just want to stop hurting, I want to hold my baby, and I want just to get to whatever our new normal is going to be.”
The Orillia OPP previously confirmed a 26-year-old man and a 46-year-old woman were arrested in connection with the incident. Police described it as an isolated event.
In an update provided to OrilliaMatters on Thursday, Const. Sophie Gwin said Madison Quinn, 26, of Orillia, has been charged with aggravated assault, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, and two counts of uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm.
The accused was held for bail at the time of the arrest and has since been released from custody on a release order with a future court date.
The investigation was completed by general law enforcement officers with assistance from the emergency response team, canine unit, Orillia major crime unit, and forensic identification services.