A week after being brutally beaten in a Kailua park, Ikaika McCallum is awaiting surgery in the hospital for his injuries and hoping that authorities will be vigilant in keeping the community safe.

The 29-year-old Navy veteran was riding his bike home at around 2 a.m. Sept. 28 after attending a Kailua block party when he was tackled and beaten by a group of men, leaving him with a broken nose, cheekbone and eye socket. He said he is fortunate that his friends were nearby, heard him yelling and helped fight off the perpetrators.

“I consider myself super lucky that I’m walking away from this. Had my friends not been there, who knows what could’ve happened,” said McCallum, a Purple Heart recipient who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where he was shot in the face. “There’s tons of kids and elderly and other families that use that park within the community. I’m just really concerned that it could’ve happened to any one of my friends or family, and it could’ve been worse for them.”

McCallum recalls being attacked by four local men estimated to be in their 20s or 30s and said they were with a woman who distracted him by trying to get him to slow down while he was riding through Kailua District Park. The men were wearing long sleeves and hoodies, he said.

In a span of two to three minutes, McCallum was knocked unconscious; he only remembers his friends helping him walk home. The incident occurred less than 100 yards away from a nearby police station, he said, adding that more homeless people have moved into the park, many of them with mental illness.

“I believe that this is a huge mental health issue in our community that isn’t being taken seriously enough, and this is the result of our lack of conviction on the issue,” he said. “I just feel like Kailua has a lot more dangerous characters there than people are realizing or are aware of.”

A GoFundMe fundraiser for the decorated veteran at 808ne.ws/31PFln1 raised $7,250 in three days for his medical expenses. The goal is $10,000.

“This was a random and unprovoked attack. His friends are his family and he has worked hard throughout his life to overcome many challenging circumstances,” the post said. “This young man was injured in the line of duty serving our country. To be riding his bike home through a neighborhood park and experience this type of violence is a travesty.”

His mother, Karen Angus, said the incident is so traumatizing that she no longer feels safe in her own backyard.

“The island’s changed so much, so quickly over the last few years. We used to feel safe everywhere we went; now it’s just an everyday thing,” said Angus, who lives in Kaneohe. “You see so many crazy people or drug addicts, just troublemakers, they’re just doing stupid stuff for no reason. I know we’re not caught up to the crime in the mainland, but that was the beauty of being over here. This was our piece of paradise where all the crime didn’t go on. We didn’t feel like we had all those big-city problems like they have on the mainland, but we do now.”