The man was a 24-year-old US tourist who just minutes earlier had a bottle smashed into his face a few hundred metres away at JC King Park.

“As an Albury resident, being faced by something like that at 5 o’clock in the morning is just terrible,” the woman said.

The man was woken by two people trying to break into his car, which was parked near the skate bowl.

One of the would-be thieves hit the man in the head with the bottle as he got out of his car to confront them. He was also punched to the head.

Acting Insp Paul Goodwin, of Albury police, said the victim ran off and knocked on the front door a house in North Street to get the occupant to phone triple-0.

The door he knocked on was the home of “Tracey”, who did not wish to be identified for fear of retribution from the man’s attackers.

“It was a distressed knock, the door bell was going flat out,” she said.

“I raced down and opened the door to find this guy in his early 20s just covered in blood.”

Tracey slammed the door in his face because “I didn’t know what it was about”.

“He was yelling out ‘no, please help me, I’ve just been bashed, I need to ring the police’.”

Tracey then opened the door again.

“This guy was distraught and I know that he needed help,” she said.

“He turned around and pointed from my house because he could see his car and he said ‘they’re still there’.”

Tracey called police, who arrived within 15 minutes.

“He was in a bad way obviously with his nose broken,” she said.

Insp Goodwin said it clearly was an unproked attack.

“It’s one of those cases of a bloke in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.

The man, who was on a driving holiday around Australia, was treated at Albury hospital for a severe laceration to his nose that exposed his nasal bone.

Tracey had asked him why he knocked on her door and the man had told her, “nobody else would answer”.

Tracey said to be confronted by such a scene “wasn’t very nice”.

“It’s very scary, especially being so close to here,” she said.

“You often hear people down there (at Bungambrawatha Creek) smashing glasses — there’s always people hanging around the drains.”

The first attacker was described as of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander appearance, 160 centimetres, in his early to mid- 20s, unshaven with short black hair.

His accomplice was Caucasian, about the same age and 180 centimetres, with light brown short hair. One of the men wore a grey hoodie.

Information can be given to Albury police on (02) 6023 9299 or Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000.