Someone at a Halloween party in Saskatchewan nearly lost his nose. That's not in dispute. But a judge must determine if it was nearly severed by a broken beer bottle or by a very sharp shield carried by someone dressed up as Dark Link from The Legend of Zelda.
Brandt Beeds, 20, the guy dressed as Dark Link, is accused of aggravated assault. He and the victim, Dillon Buck, 18, went to the 2012 party together as friends. But Beeds got into an argument with a third, unnamed person (because he is a juvenile) and Buck stepped in to break it up. That's when he almost lost his honker.
Whatever really happened, Buck took the worst of it, according to this account by The Star Phoenix of Saskatoon. Buck told the court he was smashed over the head by the other guy, with a bottle intended for Beeds. Buck, dazed, said he then saw Beeds running directly at him with Link's shield raised "and then felt like he'd been punched in the face." He then discovered he'd been cut severely on the face—deep enough that his nose was left dangling by a strip of skin and cartilage. He thinks the shield cut him.
The Star Phoenix published that photo, above, of the shield being carried into court by a police officer. The, uh, red splotches are not Buck's blood; it appears the shield was deliberately splattered with red paint.
Beeds, for his part, thinks Buck's nose was cut by the broken beer bottle, and was supported by testimony from someone named—I shit you not—Jasmine Bitternose. She said she saw Buck hit over the head by the bottle and never saw Beeds charge him with the shield.
Buck's nose was reattached by surgery later that day, though he still shows "a slight scar. Judge Donna Scott of Saskatoon Provincial Court will make a ruling on March 19.
Teen nearly lost nose in Halloween Fight [The Star Phoenix, Saskatoon, Canada.]