A country football champion remains in a critical condition after allegedly being king-hit at a regional Victorian pub on the weekend.
Ryan Hayes was knocked unconscious after reportedly intervening in a conflict at Bendigo's Newmarket Hotel, about 140km northwest of Melbourne.
The 23-year-old full forward, who once booted 26 goals in a single game and 110 goals in the 2007 season for hometown Elmore in the Heathcote Football League, allegedly stepped in when he found a customer being verbally assaulted by another man.
After asking the aggressor to join him outside and making his way toward the door, Hayes was then allegedly struck from behind by a third man.
He remains in a critical but stable condition at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital.
An 18-year-old Bendigo man has been charged with recklessly causing serious injury.
The injuries to Hayes follow last Monday's attack on another Good Samaritan who was bashed with a piece of wood after trying to stop two men from stealing his neighbour's car in Melbourne's southeast.
Darren Wheeler suffered a brain haemorrhage and facial fractures and remains on life support at the Monash Medical Centre.
The brazen daylight attack took place about 6pm in Endeavour Hills after the plasterer stepped in to foil a robbery after returning home from work.
"He went to try to stop them and one of the men smashed the car's windscreen and the other picked up a piece of wood ... and smashed him across the back of the head," the Herald Sun reported Mr Wheeler's sister Melinda Bowly as saying.
"He was just coming to the aid of a neighbour ... he was just trying to stop them and they set on him."
The spate of attacks came as the family of murdered Melbourne man Luke Mitchell proposed a national Good Samaritan day.
Mitchell, 29, was bashed and stabbed to death in May outside a convenience store in Melbourne's north while trying to stop a stranger from being assaulted. (READ MORE: Family calls for Good Samaritan day)
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