Last updated at 17:24, Friday, 15 February 2013

A BARROW man has said he is lucky to be alive after being repeatedly slashed in the neck with a broken bottle.

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Matthew Carter from Barrow was left pouring blood on to the pavement after an unknown attacker plunged a jagged smashed bottle into his neck, slicing through his jugular vein, before stabbing him in the shoulder and face during a night out in Newcastle.

The 27-year-old painter can remember nothing of the attack, which happened outside the city’s Tup Tup Palace nightclub almost three weeks ago.

He said: “Someone smashed a bottle and stabbed me with it. The doctors said I’m very lucky to be alive. But I just feel angry that I have been through all of this just for a night out. I almost died and I don’t know why. It was just for nothing. ”

Mr Carter had travelled to Newcastle to celebrate a friend’s birthday on Saturday, January 26.

The pals hired a 15-seater minibus for their night out, which was due to take them back to Cumbria at 4am.

Mr Carter can recall little of his first trip to the city. He knows the group drank in a couple of bars before separating, with some heading to Tup Tup in Saint Nicholas Square.

He said: “The last thing I can remember was just having a drink and a good night, everybody had just been having a good time and a laugh. Then the next thing I knew I was waking up in intensive care, and they told me I had had a four-hour operation on the arteries in my neck.

“I just don’t know what happened. I don’t remember any of it. I think there was some sort of argument and something was said in the club, then there was a fight outside. But it was nothing to do with me.”

Bouncers spotted the fight and one put pressure on Mr Carter’s heavily bleeding neck, while another flagged down an ambulance.

Mr Carter was rushed straight into surgery where he underwent a four-hour operation to repair his neck. He also needed two blood transfusions.

“The bouncers pretty much saved my life,” he said.

“They took me into the club, laid me down and put pressure on my neck. It just so happened that there was an ambulance outside and one of them ran out to stop it.

“If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be here. I owe my life to them and I just want to say a massive thank you to them.”

Mr Carter spent more than a week in hospital before he was able to return home.

He is now recovering at his mum’s house in Barrow, but fears he may lose his job at the shipyard, where he is employed as an industrial painter.

He said: “The glass cut through some of my nerves in my shoulder so I have lost all feeling and movement in my left arm.

“They said the nerves will have to re-grow, from my neck back down to my arm and it’s going to take nine months before they know if I’ll get my movement back. It’s just a matter of waiting now.”

First published at 15:44, Friday, 15 February 2013
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk