KAILUA — Residents of what's described as a usually quiet Keolu Hills neighborhood were stunned yesterday when a well-known man who plays Christmas Santa to area hospital children was found in a pool of blood near his carport.

"We got the call at 12:39 p.m. at 1171 Hele Street," said Bryan Cheplic, spokesman for the Emergency Medical Services Department. "A 67-year-old man with apparent slash wounds to his neck was taken to The Queen's Medical Center in critical condition."

Although details of what happened were unclear, neighbors identified the man who lives at the corner of Hele and Kina Streets as Donald Boyce, a woodworker and picture frame maker who is known as a Christmas Santa to kids at Castle Medical Center.

"He's just one nice old man," said B.J. Purdy, who lives two houses up at 1070 Kina. "We walk on the street, he always tells us hi. He always acknowledges you with a smile."

Like others in the neighborhood, Purdy said he wasn't sure what happened to Boyce, but some were saying that two men had been seen leaving that area.

Honolulu police Lt. Bert Dement said last night that police are treating the case as an attempted murder. He said because of the nature of Boyce's wounds, investigators hadn't been able to question him about who may have attacked him.

Dement said no suspects had been identified, and that police had not determined how many attackers there may have been.

"We haven't been able to talk to him to verify any kinds of numbers or exactly what happened," he said. "Some people were talking about two guys. But did anyone see anything? No. Did anyone hear anything? No."

"He's just a nice man who never bothered anybody," said Corrina Travis, who lives in the home adjacent to Boyce's on the same corner. "He worked from his home. He did woodwork in his shop. He built custom picture frames for art work."

Travis said she was shocked by the attack because the neighborhood is normally quiet, and everyone knows and waves at one another and stays on friendly terms. She said all she could think of was that maybe someone had tried to rob Boyce.

"I talked to one neighbor, and he just said he heard the ambulance sirens and didn't think much of it," she said. "He hadn't realized they had stopped there I guess. And then somebody came home and said, 'What happened to Donald?' So when he went out to look, he said he saw Donald lying there in a pool of blood and his throat had been cut."

Travis described Boyce as a big man, maybe 6 feet 3, who is bald and always happy and smiling. She said his children are all grown. Like others in the neighborhood, Travis said Boyce is well known as a Christmas Santa.

The Boyce residence is a white, one-story contemporary-style home built in the early 1960s with a chain-link fence around the front yard and an American flag flying on the roof. Boyce was apparently found on the ground near the home's carport next to his workshop.

Police investigators spent yesterday afternoon at the scene before leaving at around 5 p.m.

A small group of people who had gathered at the Boyce carport later in the evening identified themselves as Boyce's family, but said they didn't want to talk about what happened.

However, one man in the group, who said he is Donald Boyce's son, said his father was still in the intensive care unit at Queen's, but that his condition had stabilized.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.