An Episcopal priest who survived being stabbed in the chest in October is opening up about the experience. Fr. Matt Marino, rector of St. Augustine’s Trinity Episcopal Church, nearly died on a fateful day when a woman suddenly approached him in a restaurant and plunged a knife into his chest, severing an artery and puncturing his lung.
In the interview Fr. Marino set the scene, describing himself sitting at a restaurant table with a friend when he was approached by a woman who said something along the lines of, “I have problems”:
“As a pastor I instinctively go 'tell me your story' and so I lean forward and she pulls a knife out and sticks it in my chest and pulls it back, I just looked down and said 'you stabbed me.'''
Fr. Marino added that the whole scenario was so surreal to him that he didn’t realize the trouble he was in until he coughed up blood.
The surrealism only became more pronounced as the priest registered blood trailing down his own leg and felt the need to lower to the floor. In the interview, he remembered what it was like looking up at the sky while he continued to lose blood:
"I roll over and look up at the sky and the sky is just really gray, I remember just sitting thinking, 'This is a really weird way to die, I had a lot of important meetings today.' Then I remember thinking I just don't want to go like this, this seems senseless and random and not today, Lord," said Marino, "and I felt like the Lord said OK."
The priest attributed his own survival to a number of unlikely circumstances that kept him alive, noting that most people don’t survive a knife wound to the chest while 40 minutes from the nearest hospital. It came down to one passerby who just happened to have the only tool that would help in the county:
"I was told by the fire chief that a customs and border patrol training officer was driving by and saw me on the ground and happened to be the one person in the county that had a combat chest seal in his car," said Marino. "Who knows why random things happen. I know a completely random thing happened to me and then I know that a series of random things conspired to make sure I'm still here today."
While he still has a long way to go – he noted that he still has 5 or 6 feet of tubing inside of him and he’s started visiting a trauma specialist -- Fr. Marino is expected to make a full recovery. He also expressed his hopes that his attacker can be healed as well. When asked if he forgave the woman who stabbed him, Fr. Marino was brought to tears:
“I harbor no ill will and when the time comes to see her I'll tell her, I forgive her utterly and completely. It is Christianity, Christianity is … you are forgiven through the love of Jesus," said Marino. "How can I not forgive her, I've been forgiven so much, how could I not extend that forgiveness?"
