Larry Woolgar is lucky to be alive after being repeatedly hacked by a machete-wielding home intruder he believes intended to kill him.

“I honestly didn’t think I was going to live to see another day,” said Mr Woolgar, 61, of the February 26 attack in his home on Richmond Road, Pembroke.

Drug addict and serial offender Kimlo Webb was last week jailed for 13 years for the aggravated burglary in which he chopped Mr Woolgar in the face, neck and hand — using an 18-inch machete believed to have been stolen earlier from the same residence.

Ironically, it was Webb’s continued thefts from the house that ended up getting him caught.

Fed up with finding items mysteriously going missing around the house, Mr Woolgar had installed home security cameras just days earlier.

Among the articles that had disappeared was the machete.

“There was a history of missing stuff — they’d found a way to get in through the bathroom window,” he said. “I didn’t realise someone could fit in through an 11-inch space.”

Awakening at about 2.30am, Mr Woolgar got up to turn the porch light back on and found a man going through his desk drawers.

He realised the man was armed only after he’d retreated to the bedroom — at which point he surrendered.

“I saw the machete and I said, ‘That’s cool — what do you want?’” Mr Woolgar said. “But the guy was crazy — there was no reason for what he did.”

A machete blow to the right side of his neck nearly severed his carotid artery, and another strike opened a cut in the side of his face.

Raising his hand, Mr Woolgar was struck again, this time nearly losing the main tendon for his thumb.

“If I hadn’t had my hand up, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here to tell it,” he said. “He hit me twice in the side of the neck with the machete.”

Webb was originally charged with attempted murder, and Mr Woolgar said he wasn’t sure the charge should have been downgraded.

“I’m glad in a way that it was me and not some little old lady, because he could have killed somebody, easily,” he said.

Webb forced him to return to the office with him, rifling through the desk and repeatedly demanding money, ordering his victim to fill a bag with loose change.

Webb even forced Mr Woolgar to surrender a ring of little monetary value that had been a family gift.

“My mother got it for me when I was 18 and I hadn’t had it off my finger since. I couldn’t believe it.”

Webb later told a psychologist from court services that he didn’t feel like he was in his body during the attack.

“He said to me — which is why I thought that attempted murder would stick — ‘If I find money in here I’m going to kill you’,” Mr Woolgar recalled. “And I think if he had cut my artery, I wouldn’t have survived, because he would never have allowed me to leave.”

He said it was this realisation that drove him to tackle Webb when he saw the housebreaker drop his guard.

“I thought if, without being threatened, he’s going to slice me up, then what’s going to happen? I had no point of retreat, no exit, nowhere to go. So I rushed him. My intent was to grab his jacket and pull it up over his head, but it was too heavy, and I had so much blood on my hands. I just held on so he couldn’t swing.”

Webb fled after the two men staggered from the house and fell onto the lawn.

But he left a cap behind, from which some DNA evidence could be salvaged — and police were able to recognise Webb from the home camera footage.

With 36 dishonesty offences on his record, Webb was well known to authorities.

“Without the cameras, they might not have had a clue who it was,” Mr Woolgar said. “So from that perspective, I was happy. They were only set up a couple of days before.”

The infra-red footage showed captured Webb’s image after he cut the porch light, and clearly showed him removing a pane from the front door.

DNA evidence from the scene was strong — but after Webb was arrested, the traces of Mr Woolgar’s blood taken from his jacket sealed the case, he said.

Of the 13-year sentence, Mr Woolgar said: “I’m a little dissatisfied. I don’t think of myself as unreasonable, but under the circumstances I felt he should get a minimum of ten to 12 years — I don’t mean in terms of a sentence but actual time in jail. I think the sentence was a little bit light, but not enough to make a big noise about it.”

In the meantime, after two surgeries on his hand, he has only about 50 percent use of his thumb, and plans to get surgery for the scars left on his face.

“My solace is that while there was some disturbance in my life, I’m not a drama person. I don’t dwell on things,” he said.