February 24, 2007
Lucky bloke
Harkening back to my newspaper-editing days, in my professional opinion this story opens with a great lead.
QUEENSLANDER Chaz White vividly remembers the steak knife flying straight at his eye.
"For a split second I could see the tip of the blade coming towards me," he said.
There wasn't time to duck and the sharp serrated blade plunged into the corner of his left eye, sliced its way behind his right eye and into his brain.
"I remember seeing the knife - I was yelling, 'I've got a knife hanging out of my eye'," Chaz, 21, said. "I could see it with my right eye and I was trying not to blink."
The knife, which penetrated 10cm into his head, narrowly missed vital arteries. Stunned medical staff marvelled at his millimetre escape from instant death.
An X-ray of Chaz's skull taken at the hospital shows how lucky he was to survive, the knife lodged in his eye socket. Another angle from above shows just how deep the knife penetrated his skull, into his brain.
Royal Brisbane Hospital specialist Lawrence Lee said Chaz could easily have been killed.
"He's really lucky the knife missed everything," the consultant opthalmologist said. "He would have been gone if the knife had hit the carotid artery and blind if it hit the optic nerve. It was only a fraction of a millimetre away. He's a pretty tough cookie."
Today, 10 months after surgery to remove the knife, Chaz not only has perfect vision, he doesn't even have a scratch or scar to show where the knife struck him. But there are other scars. He admits he still gets emotional when he relives the unprovoked attack at a Yeppoon party and the pain when someone tried to pull the knife out before a friend pushed the man away.
"I'll always think about it - it nearly cost me my life," Chaz said this week after the man who threw the knife, Douglas Gordon White, 24, was jailed for two years, suspended after five months, after pleading guilty to causing Chaz grievous bodily harm and assaulting another man in a separate incident.
Rockhampton District Court was told Douglas White - who is not related - threw one of two knives thrown at him by his girlfriend and was not aiming at Chaz.
Chaz was taken to two local hospitals before being taken by helicopter to Royal Brisbane Hospital - with the knife, covered only by a foam milkshake container, still lodged in his head. Chaz even survived the accidental puncturing of a lung in a pre-operative procedure in which a camera was inserted through his groin.
If this guy was a cat, I'd say he'd used up about 8.5 of his 9 lives. But it confirm my long-held belief, borne of my time in the navy, as well as in the district attorney's office, that no good comes from attending crowded, alcohol-soaked parties.
Countless stabbings, shootings, beatings and bludgeonings have one thing in common: the victim was in a crowded room with lots of inebriated people.
I'm not a teetotaler, but it sure seems safer to imbibe with a small group of friends. Especially if the steak knives are locked away.
And it doesn't hurt to avoid partying with carnies, too.
The sword swallowers aren't too bad, but it's the William Tell types that scare me when they've tied one on.
Posted by Mike Lief at February 24, 2007 01:36 PM
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