Mr Murphy, of Rutherford, was king hit in a shocking random attack in Beaumont Street, Hamilton on January 3, leaving him with a broken nose and two black eyes.

The 60-year-old grandfather slumped to the ground after he was punched, with his head narrowly missing the edge of the footpath. 

“If my head hit the gutter I reckon it would have been the end of me,” he said.

Mr Murphy, a NSW Cancer Council ambassador, made news last year during his push for more palliative care funding after nursing his terminally ill wife Fiona at home until her death in August.

Mr Murphy and two mates were about to cross Beaumont Street around midnight when the attack occurred. 

“I was thinking how quiet it was when all of a sudden this bloke came from nowhere,” he said. “I haven’t seen him yet but my friends said he came running straight at me and king-hit me. He said nothing, no words were exchanged, he just took to me.

“Apparently I went down like a sack of s---. One of my mates grabbed hold of [the offender], and had him in a headlock but he got away, took his shirt off and ran towards Hamilton Railway Station.”

The attacker is aged about 30, stands about 1.8 metres tall and had a dark complexion. Mr Murphy believes a business has CCTV footage of the incident, which police are investigating.

“After this I’m not going to feel safe going out anymore,” Mr Murphy said. “I’ll always be looking over my shoulder. Here we were, three 60-year-olds just catching up for a couple of quiet drinks, minding our own business.

“We were such an easy target for some drug-affected nutter to take his anger out on. Unless he is known to police I don’t like my chances of him being caught. He could be anywhere by now.

“This was a dog act and I could have been killed.”