18 Survivors Of Attempted Murder Share Their Truly Horrifying Experiences

As horrible as these recollections are, it's truly inspiring to see how these individuals have recovered and prospered since their attack. Warning: Some of these stories are very graphic in nature.

Barbados Nightmare

A man jumped me and pummeled me on a beach in Barbados in an attempted rape. When I attacked him in defense he tried to kill me and was strangling me. I dug my shoulders in to the sand to relieve pressure and not black out managed to squeeze my knee between us to separate his torso from mine he then arched his back bringing his face closer to mine and I grabbed on with my teeth and went at his mouth and tongue ripping plenty off while he screamed. That got him off me and running. I felt high and happy after the fact but my bf who was running down to help me cried for hours. The real horror came after with the hospital visit and the next day reporting it to the constable. Barbados police don’t give a sh_t about rape and society there victim blames. Nothing was computerized and I had to write three copies of the incident to get it reported. My only consolation is that tongues don’t grow back and that mofo will remember me forever. (Source)

A True Survivor

When I was eight, my father shot me in my sleep, shot and killed my brother in his sleep, and committed suicide. I lost all of my sight, my left eye, and my sense of smell. I survived the shot because the bullet entered from my right temple and exited out my left, instead of enter from the back of my head or my forehead. The bullet lodged into my left hand because my head was resting on my hand when I was sleeping. (Source)

And He Always Will Be

When I was a newborn my biological father tried to kill me by choking me. It happened in my grandmothers kitchen and my mom bopped him over the head wth a frying pan and stabbed him with one of those hot dog pokers you use on the grill. He’s always been a real big piece of sh_t. (Source)

Never Let Someone Borrow Your Phone On The Train

Not me but my cousin… He was waiting for a train in a not very nice area. Young kid about 16-17 walks up to him and asks if he can use my cousins phone quick to call his mom. Cousin says sure and hands him the phone. After about 3 seconds it was obvious the kid didn’t need it to call his mother. He then says “this is mine now” and starts to walk away. Cousin attacked the kid and started to fight for the phone. Cousin tackles the kid and they start rolling around fighting. My cousin told me he remembered thinking “holy sh_t this kid hits hard.” Turns out the kid was stabbing him as they were wrestling. 9 stabs wounds to the head, neck, and upper back area later my cousin almost bleeds out on the train platform. Someone calls 911 and an ambulance comes and saves him. (Source)

Ouch

I was stabbed while bouncing (working as security) at a bar. I doubt the guy was really trying to kill me, though he very easily could have. It required emergency surgery to close up an artery and the knife stopped just shy of puncturing my lung. My friend, also bouncing, was stabbed over his heart, but his sternum stopped the blade. That’s probably what caused the stabber to slice his own fingers open, which lead to finding him and the conviction. He was charged with attempted murder, along with a bunch of other things. He was convicted of at least some of those charges and did 6 years. (Source)

Big Idiot

I worked with this idiot that decided to show off his new pistol before work one morning, my coworker and I were standing right beside him. I always thought he was kind of a moron so when I saw him messing with the slide of the pistol I decided to move back a little, then BANG the gun went off. He barely missed me and ending up shooting himself, the police asked if I wanted to press charges. I declined because I didn’t want to ruin the guy’s life. (Source)

What Luck

I was stabbed in the stomach during a bar fight and I passed out from blood loss. When I woke up I was in the hospital, the surgeon who patched me up let me know that had I not been stabbed I could have died from my appendix bursting. Apparently without realizing it, my appendix was perforated (and not related to the stab wound). What I thought was just some cramps was actually a life threatening time bomb, and thanks to being almost stabbed to death I got to live. (Source)

The Jealous Type

I have this mate from the States, older gent, owns a company that goes around putting change in vending machines or whatever. Anywho, his childhood friend co-owned the company with him, things were apparently really good. As it would appear, his friend was a jealous, greedy c_nt, wanted to own the company all by his lonesome. The ‘friend’ calls up my mate, asks him to help in fiddling with his car. Now my mate is a very kind guy, goes above and beyond to help a brother, gets over to his house with his toolkit and smile on his face, but the devious little sh_t rigged the car up so the exhaust would pour into the car and suffocate him. The bloke knocks him out cold, chucks him in the car with it on and goes to watch telly or something. Old mate wakes up, squirms out of the car and escapes. His mate eventually gets up to check out his dirty deed and sees him disappeared, and proceeds to send him a text a long the lines of ‘you should be asleep in the car…’. By this time he has already made it to the police station. What’s freakier is, this obvious attempt at homicide re-jogged his memory of a month of two prior where he went to help his buddy mow his lawn where a ‘freak accident’ cause a large piece of shrapnel to slice his cheek – coincidence? Who knows. Needless to say, my mate owns the entire company now. Really great guy, isn’t the first time some c_nt tried to off him though. (Source)

The Initiation

I was held hostage one time. A bloods/crypts initiation gone wrong. He intended to steal a car, but I took the bus. So instead he locked me in my office and ransacked while looking for something worth stealing. Lying tied up on the floor, I was threatened by him multiple times with a gun in my face, and was sure this was “it.” Eventually one time while he left me to ransack some more, I slipped out of the binds and called 911, and put my hands back in the cords so it wouldn’t look like I was free. After I saw the police lights reflected off a neighboring business, I jumped out the window into a fully setup swat team. He chased me out the window and was caught. I am certain he would have killed me if i hadn’t called 911 and escaped. (Source)

Why Isn’t This Kid Institutionalized?

My older brother abused me for pretty much my entire life. Broken bones, chemical burns from supergluing my eyes shut while I was sleeping, regular burns, strangling, etc. The one instance that sticks out to me the most is when we were roughly 13 and 15, he was pissed because I was watching a show and didn’t want to give up the TV for him. He started punching me anywhere his fists could land. I tried to escape into our room and he slammed into the door until it cracked and he could get in. Chased me through the house, managed to grab me by the hair and throw me over the banister (we had a half wall separating the stairwell from the upstairs) and I free fell an entire level downstairs. When I stood back up, he was standing at the top with a chefs knife in his hand. At that point I freaked out and tried to escape through the French doors in my sisters room but he made it outside just as I opened the door. So I ran back upstairs with him right behind me, made it to the kitchen. We had one of those counters that wrap around and then stick out in one spot, like an attached island. That was separating us while I tried to call my mom but he sliced the cord. I threw the receiver at his face as hard as I could and ran past him while he was holding his head. I made it down the street before I noticed he wasn’t following me anymore. When I threw the phone, I shattered his front teeth and apparently it’s excruciating when your nerves are dangling and exposed. I called my mom and told her what happened. She told me to go back home and she would talk to him when she got home from work. Lol fat chance. I walked to my friend’s house across the highway and stayed there till my dad dragged me home. (Source)

Awesome Sister

When I was a kid, my neighbors were this sweet old couple, and occasionally their grandkids – five boys- would come to visit. The oldest, Liam, was my age and had severe behavioral problems. All his younger brothers were terrified of him, and I hated his guts, but I still had to hang out with him. One time, we were playing in an inflatable pool in my backyard, Liam, my sister and I being the oldest ones there- no adults were around. Well, Liam wouldn’t stop picking on his poor brothers, so I pantsed him. Everyone laughed. He did not take it well. When I turned around, he ran up behind me and shoved my head underwater and held me under for about two minutes while I struggled. I could see his brothers’ legs around me but none of them moved, that’s how petrified they were of him. I thought it was over. I was starting to black out when I began to hear a SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH noise and then suddenly I was free, flat on my back and coughing up water. My sister had waded over as fast as she could and punched him in the face so hard she broke his nose. (Source)

Some People Just Can’t Handle Breakups

“Not my story, but that of a friend. He’s a very intelligent chap. Went to MIT. While he was there he started dating this girl going to Wellesley and, as these things happen, they eventually broke up. Was as typical as breakups can be until a couple of nights later when his new ex sneaks into his room, sits on his back while he is sleeping, and stabs him in the back 7 times with a pocketknife. Which, as I understand it, was a bit alarming. He starts defending himself, knocks the knife out of her hand. She pulls out another one. Rinse and repeat. At this point she just leaves, as she was likely running low on knives. He is, of course, freaking out, having just been stabbed and all. He calls 911 and while the paramedics are there working on his back before taking him to the hospital (luckily it was a short blade) the police are asking him what the f*ck was going on, where to find this girl, and what she looks like. He says he doesn’t know where she is currently, to which she replies, ‘Here I am.’ She was in the hallway, still covered in blood, having come back with another knife. A couple days later she received a crossbow in the mail. I do believe she was later found not guilty on the premise of insanity. If any of you went to MIT, this is the story behind why MIT men are warned not to date Wellesley women.” (Source)

It’s Amazing He’s Still Alive

“Back in May 2006 I got off of work at the mall. I got on the bus as usual and another mall employee I had talked to on a regular basis sat down across from me. We chatted it up for a while and he commented about always running into people that knew me, there was another person I knew as an acquaintance on the bus so we moved back to talk to her as well. The first guy gets off and her I keep talking. She says she has to walk to meet her boyfriend before we get off and I offer to walk with until she meets him but she declines and we go our separate ways. I go to the store before headed home and grab some beer. Halfway through my first beer there is a knock at the door. A friend of my roommate, we talked for a bit and he left. Almost done with my beer and another knock, it is him again. He asks if he could use the restroom, and thinking nothing of it I say sure. Not one second later three more people flood in as soon as the door is opened the rest of the way. One of them the boyfriend of the girl on the bus. The first thing said is ‘why where you messing with my girl, dawg?’ As two of them opened butterfly knives and I tried to talk them down, I sat there calmly on the couch. They were quite unwilling to listen and I think sitting there calm and just trying to talk pissed off at least one of them. The boyfriend is in my face waving his knife but he did not make the first strike, his friend jumps out from behind me and stabs me in the neck (It felt like it went in one side and out the other). I stood up grabbed my throat and said ‘f*ck I am going to die.’ I ran to my bedroom to get away through the patio door in there. I close one door behind me and I am going for the sliding glass door when there is a crash and a slam against the back of my head. They had kicked the door off it’s hinges and it hit me. The next thing I remember I swear I am in my living room again but it my have been me stumbling into the hallway again and I see two flashes. They reflected off of the man’s glasses, there was an ambient light coming from outside but for a moment there were just those three flashes. I was shot. I am suddenly on the floor looking up at the front door, with one figure standing there. I tell him ‘just leave, I’m already dead’ in a raspy and gurgling voice. He then asks where my phone is and I say I think it’s is my bag. After he grabbed it and was out the door I hear a car squeal out of the parking lot leaving me for dead. I picked myself up off of my floor and stumbled out the door and started knocking at my neighbor’s window and door for help. They looked out and right after the man is out with a towel telling his family to call 911. I have no idea how long it took but they start showing up asking me questions, but I do remember I was scared to talk because I thought every time I did even more blood poured out than when I was silent. The paramedics arrive to take me away and I tried to persuade them not to cut off my clothes because I was not wearing underwear (my thought now is delirium) I was trying to maintain some modesty I guess. They are asking me questions as they get me ready, on the stretcher and through the ride to the nearest trauma ward a city over. We get there and as they wheel me in to ER I get another scare as one doctor says ‘he’s probably a junky that got messed up in a drug deal gone wrong,’ and just before I go out I can feel an intense pressure around my neck. That is the story of that evening, two blackouts, stabbed seven times, and shot four times. I have a bullet in my head, one in my chest, one that shattered in my hand and one was removed as it was caught in my esophagus. I was out of the hospital in eleven days. Don’t let a few unstable people dissuade you from living your life.”(Source)

From Tragedy To Positivity

“My first semester freshman year of college I had been out at tailgating before a football game and partying all day. I came back to the dorm rooms to find a group of friends celebrating one of their birthdays around 2 am by eating mushrooms and smoking weed. We were hanging out in the room and there was a loud knock on the door and everyone was freaking out. I was the most sober and not doing any drugs so I went to check the door and it was another guy who lived on our hall. I asked what was going on and he and a couple people came in the room and began accusing people of stealing his weed. At this point – everyone in the room is freaking out…because, mushrooms. So I got the people who had just showed up to go out into the hall and talk to me about what was going on. A couple of them left and just the original guy stayed and talked to me and he was very angry about approx. $30 worth of weed missing from his room. He got in my face and I pushed him against the wall and told him this was done. At this point, he pushed my arm off of him and made a quick movement. I thought he had tried to punch me in the face so I lunged forward and tried to do the same but ended up falling to the ground. I fell on my back and noticed blood squirting everywhere and realized that he had stabbed me across my throat and through my cheek. At this point he was standing over top of me with an approximately 12 inch hunting knife that he had hidden under his sweatshirt. I wasn’t able to move much or talk and was just clutching my throat. He ended up running off and I was able to slide over and kick the door of one of the nearby dorm rooms. Someone came out and screamed and was able to get others to come out and help. By this point, there was lots of blood that had sprayed a few feet up the wall in all directions and a large pool on the floor. A number of people came out and put T-shirts around my neck and called 911. I was in and out laying on the floor of the hall, but do remember people saying that 911 thought it was a prank phone call and they wouldn’t send an ambulance until they spoke with an RA from the dorm. Next thing I know, the RA from our hall (who supplied everyone with alcohol as a side business) stumbled out of his room drunk and told us to quiet down and go back to sleep, oblivious to what was going on. Eventually people got ahold of another RA and 911 said an ambulance was on the way. Judging by the looks of everyone around me, I 100% thought that that was it for me and I tried to tell some of the people gathered around what I wanted them to tell my Dad, my Mom, both of my brothers and my sister and I began to make peace with what was happening. The ambulance got there and I was laying in the back and remember having a similar conversation with one of the EMTs. The first thing they said to each other was to get the defibrillator ready because I was losing it. One then said to me to stay awake and that they knew I didn’t want to have to have my parents and family bury me. Something kicked in right then that I will never forget and I made damn sure to keep my eyes open and went from making peace with it to making sure that didn’t happen. I got a blood transfusion at the hospital and was sedated from what I can remember, but I woke up around 5 am with 44 stitches across my throat and 10 across my cheek. My family was all there along with some friends from college who met my parents over there after they made the 2 hour drive at 5 am after receiving the phone call from the police/hospital in the middle of the night. The doctors told me that I had lost over 1/3 of my blood and that by all typical measures, I should have not made it through and that they had never seen someone lose that much blood and live. In fact, the knife came within 1 mm of hitting my carotid artery meaning I would’ve bled out instantly. I do not know why or how that happened that way, but I feel pretty lucky because of it and it has changed my outlook on life. This happened the week before exams and instead of going home and pulling out like a lot of people wanted me to, I went to my exams looking like Frankenstein and passed all of them. I spent the next 4 years of my college career getting subpoenas every other month for the trial and dealing with a very long, complicated process for what was one of the most violent things that had happened in that area for a long time. Long story short, after 4 years of back and forth and appeals and an ongoing trial, we let the guy plead guilty to a lesser assault with a deadly weapon charge to be over and done with it. By that point, it was something I dealt with daily and still had PTSD issues and trouble coping with everything that had happened. He went to jail for a couple years and a long period of probation, but what happened after that I don’t know and was just glad to wash my hands of it and put the whole thing behind me. It isn’t something I would wish on anyone, but it did 100% change my whole outlook on life. I will never take anything for granted or have any kind of regrets or be scared to talk to the girl that looks like she it out of my league and am all for just going out and making my life happen. I graduated college on time with a double major in management and marketing, sold all my stuff a year later and got on a flight by myself to Italy with nothing but a suitcase and got certified to teach english, then moved to Spain for nearly 2 years where I taught English and travelled all over Europe and Africa and met some of the coolest people and some of the best experiences. Once I moved back, I found a job at a marketing agency where I came in entry level and am now worked my way up in the company after 2 years. I don’t say any of this to brag at all, but just to illustrate that the whole experience was awful but I went from being a person who would’ve been happy just to coast by and do what was expected to someone who just values and views life differently now as a result. I am now 28 and it is something that will always be there, but I don’t deal with the PTSD anymore and am at a point where I look forward to 12/3 now (the date it happened) to do something to celebrate still being alive and this year will be the 10 year mark and I am proud of everything I have accomplished since then.” (Source)

Adding Insult To Injury, Literally

“When I was 17, I took my HS girlfriend to winter dance. Before though, we went out to dinner in the city (Dayton, OH). There is a nice Thai place we were going to, but I hadn’t really learned my way around (and this was before pocket GPS). I ended up parking outside of the ‘nice’ district a bit too far, because of traffic and no parking spots being open. We figured walking would just be faster. It was snowing, we were enjoying a conversation – but I noticed a man alter his trajectory slightly towards us. Background – I’ve done Bujinkan Taijutsu since I was 14; I had learned situational awareness, and taken self defense/rape prevention courses. I’m tall, but really skinny. I saw him coming but let myself not be 100% ready. As we go to pass, sure enough the knife comes out. Buck knife. Doesn’t ask for money – he tells us to shut up and say nothing. He looks at my date, and gives a look that tells me this is not about money. I had to decide – do I wait another 5 seconds to see what he does, or do I be stupid and rush him? So I decided. I rushed diagonally at him, and even with my hands up he got the blade into my guard and sliced the outside of my orbital socket. Date ran the opposite direction screaming for help. I take the chance to rush into his off-swing, and he hits my ribs with the butt of the handle. I can’t breathe, or see in my right eye – but I have his neck with my thumb on the trachea, and my right hand is barely holding his arm to me ( so he can’t get the knife loose ). I apply as much raw force to his neck as my adrenaline fueled body can manage. I hear a small pop, and he fell a away fast. I hadn’t crushed it, but he was definitely feeling it. I took this time to fall back, but was so winded I could only manage about 50 feet. I’m bleeding like a faucet from my right eye, and l was certain the eye was slashed. I slink away, and he didn’t follow. The police and my date found me on the sidewalk after some people ran out of an apartment to investigate. I have my eye, but only about 50% of my vision. It looks only slightly like Fogarty from A History of Violence. Also, a long scar from my eyebrow to my cheek. For about a week after, her parents and her were grateful and just so thrilled that I put myself into that to protect her. A week later she cheated on me with a guy from the basketball team, and I was just garbage to be dumped. Moral of the story – nothing is ever good enough for some people XD.” (Source)

Only False Imprisonment?!?!

“I dated the quarterback in high school. My parents hated him, but their hatred fueled me to overlook red flags and really push to make things work….to prove them wrong. I was 17. Anyway, flash forward to 19 I’m still dating the douche. I had been pushed around, had bruises left on me, lots of little shit had happened but I never told anyone. He was always terribly sorry and made it out to be my fault. I was young and he totally manipulated me because he had a weird hold over me since he took my virginity. I was going to college and living in my own house alone. I had experienced life outside my crazy small town and something in me snapped after a day of abuse. I was f_cking done. It was late November and he had just purchased me a Christmas tree. When I called to finally break up with him, he was pissed off and told me he just wanted his Christmas tree. Fine. I left it on my front porch and went to a friend’s house. I had a really terrible feeling and needed to not be home. I started getting a plethora of phone calls and texts from him. They started off begging me to talk, then when I didn’t respond he left me voice mails telling me his mother had a heart attack and he needed me. We lived a couple hours from our hometown and he started timing his calls with what town he’d be at if he were actually driving. “I’m not anywhere near you. I just passed [name of town] and I’m so scared about my mom. Please call me.” Then 15 minutes later when he’d be passing another town I’d get the same call. He kept saying he wasn’t anywhere near me. I ended up turning off my phone and staying at my friends house until 3 am. When I got home I was careful to drive around and make sure his car wasn’t around. I ran inside and got a call on my land line. ‘Where have you been.’ It was the absolute coldest I’ve ever heard his voice. I told him not to call me and hung up. Two seconds later my door flew open and I was thrown against my counter. He was screaming, asking where I had been, who I was with, why was I ignoring him, etc. I started begging him to calm down. I reached for my cell phone and he broke it in half and ripped my landline out of the wall. The rest is basically a blur. He totally trashed my house. At one point I made it outside. Neighbors 2 doors away saw him grab my hair and drag me inside. They did nothing. He grabbed a knife he’d brought and held it against my neck, then told me that’s not how he wanted me to go. He grabbed my face and shoved it into my couch, suffocating me. This encounter was nearing 2 hours long at this point and I couldn’t get loose and started losing consciousness. Something happened and he snapped out of it. He let go and did a total 180. He started bawling and apologizing. He hugged me and begged me to forgive him. I told him I forgave him but he needed to go so I could rest. I told him whatever I needed to, to get him out of my house. I immediately plugged in my landline and called 911. He started knocking on the door, crying and apologizing. I said I had just called the police, and he screamed ‘you f_cking b_tch!” And left. He pled down to false imprisonment and was only given a little community service. I had a restraining order for awhile. The second it was up he called and asked me to be a ‘team player’ and help him get the charges expunged. Nope. F_ck off.” (Source)

An Angry Meth Head Is A Very, Very Scary Thing

“I lived in this duplex years ago with one of my coworkers. Our place of employment hired this new guy who clearly had some issues, but seemed like he was really trying. The new guy, Shawn, had been in and out of rehab and halfway houses for drug charges, but he was living in his brother’s garage and picking up as many shifts at work as he could to try and earn enough money to get his own place. Winter came around, and Shawn was living in this unheated, uninsulated garage. My coworker/roommate talked about it and decided to invite him to stay on our couch under the condition that he stay clean and he keep saving for a new place. Shawn gratefully accepted, moved in, and things went well for several months. But then Shawn started slipping, missing shifts at work, disappearing for days on end, all while becoming much more aggressive. Our suspicions were confirmed when one day my roommate walked in on Shawn smoking meth on the living room floor. We promptly told Shawn to gather his things and move out. A few weeks later, at about 1am I awake to someone pounding on the front door. I groggily get up and go answer it, and there is Shawn, high as a kite and screaming. I quickly latched the outside wooden screen door, and tried to talk Shawn into leaving before I called the cops. After a few minutes without making any headway, I tell Shawn I am going to call the police, and start shutting the inside door. Shawn bursts through the wooden screen door like it isn’t even there, which knocks me backwards over the arm of the couch. I land on the seating portion of the couch on my back, and Shawn is on top of me, with both hands around my throat. I swung and hit him in the head and face as hard as I could, but he was a big guy and was so high that it didn’t faze him. If anything, it tightened his grip around my throat. I quickly realized that I couldn’t get him off me, so I kind of quit struggling and resigned myself to my fate. My vision started to get blurry around the edges and sounds started getting muffled. At first I felt sad that I wouldn’t get to see my family again, but then I just started to feel at peace as I began slipping away. Finally I closed my eyes for what I thought would be the last time in my life. Suddenly I was able to draw a huge breath, and the weight of Shawn’s body was no longer pinning me down. I rolled off the couch gasping for air, and when I gained enough breath, I looked up to see my roommate, I sh*t you not, beating Shawn around the head and face with a frying pan. She had heard the commotion and ran into the living room to see Shawn choking me the death, so she grabbed a frying pan off the drying rack in the kitchen and started to hit him as hard as she could. We were eventually able to push Shawn outside, where he sat on a bench on my porch crying until the police arrived.” (Source)

A Sad And Senseless Attack

“When I had turned 18 I was out with a couple of friends, and we decided to walk to a local shop to pick up some food before heading back to my friend’s house to stay the night and play some Halo. On our way back to my friends house we were walking along a road which we had walked countless amounts of times and were only a couple of minutes from reaching his house. I should note at this point I had offered to carry my friend’s bag with several cans of spray paint in it as he was complaining of getting a back ache. I remember getting a distinct feeling of uneasiness and one of my friends shouting ‘RUN!’ It was at this point that I looked over my shoulder to see what we were running from. I saw two men and a dog running towards us from behind (not the greatest idea I’ve ever had) and began to run myself. I had only gotten to run for a few paces before I felt a blow to the back of the head with something that made a wooden sound when it connected. I kept trying to move as one of the two men continued to hit me with what I can only assume was a small bat or broken pool cue, and saw the other man run past me after my two friends, who had managed to get a head start. After taking a good few blows to the head and shoulders, I fell on the ground and after a couple of swift kicks the guy ran off after the dog they had with them. I was still conscious at this point and completely pumped with adrenalin, so I jumped to my feet thinking ‘I’m still conscious, where the hell are my friends?’ and ran a few meters up the road to a gateway at the back of a school, where I saw my best friend lying face down on the ground. It didn’t register for a couple of seconds but the other man who had chased my two friends (one of whom got over a fence and into the aforementioned school to safety) was standing with his face covered just staring coldly at me. He then moved towards me and hit me hard in the chest (with what I thought was a bottle in an attempt to break my ribs) and grabbed me with his other hand to pull me closer. He started reaching round me and hitting me in the back, but kept hitting my friend’s bag, which had the tins of spray paint. I remember hearing a hissing sound and smelling paint. The guy then took off after his friend and the dog and disappeared down the street. I looked up to see they were gone and instantly went to help my friend on the ground. He was lying there making wheezing and gasping noises, and I could see from the way he was lying half on/half off the curbstone that there was blood coming from his eyes and his glasses were broken. I knew at that point that things were not good and I got the strangest urge to pull his sweater and t-shirt up to check for injuries (I still don’t know to this day what made me do it) and saw puncture holes in his back. It then dawned on me that he had been stabbed and he needed medical attention. I rolled him over into the recovery position and screamed for my other friend to come out of hiding and call an ambulance. There was an off-duty firefighter who was walking home from a local bar at this time and ran over to help as he was first aid trained. I let him take over and he called one of his friends who was a local doctor to come round and help whilst the ambulance came. I then threw off my friend’s bag, my sweater and t-shirt into a pile on the ground and saw a puncture hole in my chest just at the bottom of my ribs and blood pouring out. I wrapped my t-shirt around me to soak up the blood as the emergency services arrived. I was bundled into an ambulance as the paramedics took my friend to hospital. My friend died in hospital as one of the knife wounds had severed his aorta and he had bled out inside. I discharged myself the next morning with a few stitches and spent the next five years trying to mentally recover from the event. Reflecting back on the events, I realized if I had not taken my friend’s bag then he would have been wearing it when attacked and he would not have taken the multiple stab wounds which killed him. This is one thing that has weighed heavily on my mind ever since and I have lost the best friend I ever had.”