Ask The Guy Who Was Stabbed Next To His Heart

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

No dreams or nightmares about the attack, I think that I benefited from everything happening so fast and her getting arrested right away. The hospital experience is a different story as it was a somewhat surreal experience in and of it’s own.

Phantom pain, no. Real pain, yes. This actually relates to the hospital part of the experience as what the doctors did to me hurts more than the knife wound now.

I had a punctured lung and the treatment for a punctured lung is to have two tubes inserted into the most uncomfortable positions in your chest and back imaginable. One was inserted sideways along my lower rib cage below my heart and entered my chest cavity just below my heart in order to inflate the collapsed lung. That was left a four inch long scar and damaged much muscle tissue. The second was inserted in my back just behind my heart and was used for drainage; it entered between two ribs and left a 3 inch scar. The knife wound is only about 3/4 of an inch wide, so it didn’t tear much muscle.

I don’t really feel any pain from the attack wound as most of the damage was done to the lungs. It doesn’t cause much pain but does affect my breathing. The other two hurt like a sonofabitch for months as the are in spots that are constantly moving, bending and stretching. I did a lot of water kickboxing workouts with hand weights to stretch out the scar tissue in the chest and back. My fear is that if I don’t get these to healed and stretched now I may have phantom pains later and perhaps ignore an actual heart attack signal.

62

I packed it all into about eight large Rubbermaid totes and a friend of hers came over (escorted by the police) and picked them up from my driveway while I watched from inside. She had a lot of designer shoes, purses, belts and cloths and I know she would have hounded me about them years from now if I didn’t give them up.

63

Ok excuse me if this is way out of line, but… I would absolutely love to see pictures of your scars if you’re comfortable sharing.

Otherwise, thanks for sharing your story. I don’t have anything else to ask…

64

I have actual police photos of me laying in the street with blood running down my yellow shirt; quite a contrast. Most people tell me that they wish I hadn’t shown them that. :eek:

I am of course thinking of tattoo ideas for the knife wound.

65

:eek:
Why on earth did those tubes leave such big scars? Did they have to slice you there to get the tubes in or something? My daughter had a collapsed lung as a neonate, and they had to put in a chest tube (to drain the air out of her chest to allow the lung to inflate, not to inflate it directly) and has just a little dimple there now (16 years later).

66

I believe that they where made so long as to anchor them to me in case I started thrashing about. That and they were done quickly in a life saving situation, so they most likely were not concerned with cosmetics.

Still they were uncomfortable as hell. I had to sleep a couple of nights in a hardback chair with another hardback chair in front of me to rest my head on in order to take the pressure off of them so that I could sleep. Sort of like you see people doing in an overseas flight.

67

Here is an edited version of the story from the local paper:

***The City of Xxxxxx police were dispatched to Yyyyyy Drive at 1 a.m. on Nov. 18 after a resident reported that there was an unknown man knocking on her door, asking for help, according to a Xxxxxxx police report.

The police arrived to find the ZZ-year-old Xxxxxxxx man in his boxers and a shirt, which was covered in blood from his collar to his waist, the report said. As the police exited the car, the man approached them and asked them for help. He said his friend had stabbed him in the chest, the report said. He told police the woman who stabbed him was still in his house and gave them permission to go in, the report said.

The man was then treated by EMS. He said he and his 41-year-old female friend had been drinking that night and that she lives in SSSSS JJJJJ but had been staying with him for the past couple of months, the report said.

He said at some point that night they began to fight and he told her that he wanted to go to bed, the report said. At that point, he said the woman became irate, grabbed a knife from a butcher block in the kitchen, and stabbed him in the upper left chest, the report said. He said he did not assault her in any way, the report said.

As police entered the house, they could see a trail of blood leading from the front door through the living room and toward a hallway, the report said. Police found the woman sitting on the couch without any pants on, the report said. Officer asked her to show her hand and get on the floor, noting that she appeared intoxicated and slow to react, the report said. She was handcuffed and police said she did not appear to be injured, the report said.

The police began searching the house for others, and the woman told them that the man lived there and nobody else was home, the report said. She told them he was at work and would be home soon, the report said. The police noted that she was obvioulsy intoxicated and incoherent, the report said. The report said she did not make any statements about harming the ZZ-year-old man and repeatedly said she needed to call him to tell him what was going on. She denied any knowledge of having a fight that night, the report said.

Police found the suspected knife behind the toaster on the counter; it had blood on it approximately four inches from the point, the report said.

Later when the woman was interviewed at the police station, she asked what this was all about. The police officer explained to her what happened, noting that she seemed dumbfounded, the report said.

The woman was arrested for aggravated assault with intent to cause serious bodily harm less than murder, the report said**.*

68

We aren’t most people.

69

That why’s there’s spoilers and heads ups.
Also, you were lucky you went to the regular police wearing your yellow shirt rather than the fashion police because the latter would have arrested you.

Bullseye? King Arthur pulling out Excalibur?

70

I am tempted to post it just to show you it was a cool shirt; in a shit faced drunk sort of cool way. At least I had shorts on, she got arrested without any. You could say she got caught red handed with her pants down! :smiley:

Excalibur, I like that one. Better than the bleeding liberal heart I was considering.

I was also thinking of a having a tiger claw it’s way out of the scar but I would have to open up the wound some more in order to make it work.

71

Are you familiar with AlAnon?

72

Yes and I am familar with co-dependency and enabling and drinking buddies and yada yada yada as well. Please take 12 steps back as I am OK.

73

Are you happy with the sentence and charge she received? It sounds like you think it was a little heavy but it seems really light to me. Two men armed with knives tried to mug me outside of my Boston apartment in 1999. I fought them off and ran successfully. They were charged with attempted armed robbery and got 3 and 5 years in maximum security prison with no chance of an early release and I didn’t get stabbed or even hurt at all. Then again, they were repeat offenders who had just gotten out of prison for much worse things. Did the DA ever consider an attempted murder charge for her?

74

No I don’t think it is too heavy or too light. She was a first offender who made a mistake in a drunken state. She raised two good kids and was never violent to me before this incident. She needs help and time out. Two years is a long time for an older established person who is dealing with issues such as extended unemploment and children leaving her care. She told me before hand that she was feeling on the edge and rudderless and I didn’t connect the dots. Yeah I am OK with two years.

75

We talked about the possibilities yes. We discussed her previous record (none to speak of), where she stabbed me, how long I was in the hospital, and her threat to society and agreed that two years was warranted. Then I went in front of the judge and explained the logic behind our decision and he was OK with it.

76

How much input did you have into the guilt and sentencing process?

Was the DA just humoring you or could you have nudged his decision one way or another?
When you were defending yourself against her, did you think about hurting her enough to render her incapable of continuing the attack? If you thought about that, did the chance of being accused of assault (with her saying that she stabbed you in self-defence) come to your mind?
Can we see the scar?

77

Wow, sounds like actual justice occurred for her.

Glad you survived.

78

But what did the report say though? JFC, I cannot believe the shit that gets published sometimes.

79

I had a client who was woken up by his wife stabbing him in the head. Their adult son pulled her off before she stabbed him a second time.

Once she was out of prison they started talking again, until the day he returned home to find his block cordoned off by the tactical response unit because she was holed up at his place with a shotgun waiting for him.

Call me overcautious, but from my way of thinking, once someone tries to kill you, there should be no further contact with that person. Just sayin’ . . . .

80

Stab me once, shame on you…