An aspiring young actor has told how escaped death after being stabbed in the heart and then leaping 25 feet from a rooftop to get away from his assailant.
Taylor Wells, 23, was saved by a paramedic who performed a life-saving emergency surgery in the ambulance after he was knifed in his chest and lungs.
He did not wake up for two days before he was told that he had “died in the ambulance”.
The acting student had been at the home of his friend Olivia Pentelow, 20, in Queensbury, near Bradford, West Yorkshire, when the horrific assault took place on July 21.
He was stabbed in the heart and in his lungs while trying to separate the assailant from his friend Jacob Oldfield, 21, whose face was also slashed during the violent incident.
Taylor fled the apartment through a skylight and flung himself onto the street below, before dragging himself to a nearby takeaway to call for help.
Taylor, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, said: “I woke up and I felt scared, I felt terrified.
“They told me my heart had stopped. That I had died but came back to life.
“It’s unbelievable that all of us have come out the other side of this alive.
“It’s a miracle no one died.”
He told he had been at Olivia’s apartment that morning when his world was suddenly “turned upside down”.
The retail worker said: “All I remember seeing all this blood and decided to intervene.
“I don’t remember being stabbing in the heart because I blacked out for a moment – but then it was fight or flight, and I tried to get away.
“It all felt so quick, even if it must have been about 20 minutes of complete terror.
“I tried to smash through a window but it wouldn’t break, but then I found a skylight and climbed out.
“I didn’t think about it, my adrenaline was just pumping so I jumped.
“I could hear Liv in the house screaming ‘get me out’ so I ran to a takeaway to get help.
“In just a moment our lives were turned upside down.”
Taylor had lost dangerous amounts of blood from his wounds and passed out on the pavement – and woke up days later at Leeds General Infirmary.
Only when he regained consciousness did he learn that his two best pals had survived.
Doctors then explained to him how he had died and was resuscitated by a paramedic while in the ambulance – who likely saved his life.
The paramedics had to break his sternum and put two drains into his chest to stop the blood flow on the way to Leeds General Infirmary.
The student at Bradford School of Creative Arts said: “The paramedic saved my life performed surgery while I was in the ambulance.
“I can’t thank them enough because without them I wouldn’t be here today.”
Taylor underwent a five hour life-saving operation where surgeons had to carefully cut him open from armpit to armpit – leaving him with 45 stitches.
Despite surviving the vicious assault, Taylor hasn’t been able to sleep since due to chronic nightmares.
He said: “I woke up in the hospital and I felt like people were still trying to kill me.
“And I was too scared to go back to sleep, because I didn’t want to drift away and never wake up.
“I keep having nightmares and I don’t know when they’ll stop.
“The nightmares were so intense my heart would start beating at a rate of knots and it would cause my chest to hurt so much I’d wake up.”
Taylor was released on July 31, after spending ten days in hospital.
Thankfully, doctors said he had no long-term damage but would need at least six months for him to make a physical recovery.
But the young man says the assault has slashed his dreams of becoming an actor.
He said: “I can’t go to work, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue my career in acting and modelling.
“I’ve got massive stitches and wounds all around my body and I can’t carry anything or hold my arms up.
“It’s been a massive blow to my dream – the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”
Despite the traumatising incident, the three pals have grown closer than ever before since.
Taylor, who met the pair two years ago at college, said: “It’s crazy, someone came into our lives and ripped us up – but I think the three of us have come together closer than ever before.
“We’re filling that hole he ripped through us with love.”
An 18-year-old man, from Bradford West Yorkshire, has been charged with attempted murder.
A trial date at Bradford Crown Court has been set for the Aug 21.