The Swamp Reataurant and Bar where Justin
Oliver was stabbed during a fight.
(Photo by Daniela Aguilera)

As Justin Oliver walks away from the fight, he straightens his royal-blue shirt with an angry tug. He grasps something soft and slippery, and the hand he pulls away from his body is dripping and warm. He lifts up his shirttail in confusion and realizes his once-spotless shirt is now doused in blood.

“Holy shit! What happened to you?” his friend shouts in disbelief.

“I think … I got stabbed—I don’t know,” Oliver says.

As he frantically wipes the blood away to see where it’s coming from, the blood continues to pour out. He realizes he’s been stabbed, but doesn’t know how many times.

There’s no pain, so he doesn’t understand what’s happening. Then he looks down and sees a small part of his intestine sticking out of his body.

After being stabbed in the heart, stomach, hand, intestine and under his left arm, Oliver was rushed to Alachua General Hospital Trauma where he underwent an exploratory surgery.

For three hours doctors checked all of his organs near the entry wounds—but they focused on one area. The knife came dangerously close to grazing his aorta. Another couple of millimeters could have left Oliver dead.

“My heart was bleeding so much that they couldn’t even stop it long enough to see where it was coming from,” he says.

After surgery, Oliver was in the Intensive Care Unit for three days where he spent most of his time falling in and out of consciousness because of the painkillers and medications he was on.

Oliver describes his hospital visit as one of the most depressing times of his life. The accident left him incapacitated and unable to function.

“You can’t eat. Drinking hurts, swallowing hurts—breathing, coughing, anything hurts,” he says.

His father, mother, two brothers and sister, along with a number of other close friends, were with him at all times and acted as Oliver’s most effective medication.

According to the police report, and Oliver’s account of the incident, UF student Christopher Melendez, 19, had been kicked out of the Swamp earlier that evening because he was too intoxicated. Two Swamp bouncers were telling Oliver the story near the entrance when an agitated Melendez came up and argued with Oliver and the bouncers. Oliver and Melendez walked away from the entrance and continued to argue when Melendez punched Oliver, and the two began fighting. Melendez stabbed Oliver with a Schrade-brand knife he was carrying in his pocket.

When contacted by Orange & Blue, Melendez declined to comment due to pending legal issues.

The perpetual Christmas lights of the Swamp burn holes in the dark sky as Oliver’s surroundings begin to spin violently. He doesn’t feel any pain, but he begins to realize just how much blood he’s loosing—leaving his body cold. He lies down on the cool, gray sidewalk just north of the Swamp.

A man approaches and claims he knows first aid. Oliver doesn’t know whether to trust him until the man tells him he’s a Navy Seal, trained for these exact types of situations. He immediately rips off Oliver’s shirt and starts to compress the wounds.

Shane Volney, first-year medical student, and personal friend of Oliver’s, approaches the crowd forming around Oliver. When he sees his friend lying on the sidewalk he pushes through the crowd to help. Volney calms him down and explains that compressing the wounds will stop the bleeding.

“Justin, everything is okay. You’re doing fine. It doesn’t look that bad,” Volney tells the now half-conscious Oliver.

“Shane, my intestines are hanging out of my stomach,” Oliver replies.

The word spreads like fire in a hay field that someone has been stabbed. No one knows who at first, but soon people begin to yell, “Justin got stabbed!”

Gradually, Oliver begins to feel pain—not a sheer, stabbing sensation, but an inner burn that feels like a progressively worsening stomachache.

He starts falling into a deep sleep, a trance he fears he may never wake from. His mind is trying to make sense of what just happened, and he can’t stop thinking: “This is it; this is how it’s going to end.”

As Oliver waited on the blood-soaked pavement for more than 15 minutes before the ambulance arrived, it felt like an eternity.

“I can’t explain it. It’s like staring at a painting, then closing your eyes and opening them and seeing the exact same painting but in all different colors,” he says. “Life is exactly the same, but you see it in a whole new way. Life is just too short—the biggest thing is that you realize you can die.

“You start to appreciate the simple things like being able to swallow, and go to the bathroom on your own—and walk even.”

Oliver’s self-image has changed too. He no longer concerns himself with the way he looks. The exploratory surgery left him with one scar that runs about three-fourths the length of his chest and stomach, and another scar under his upper left arm. He’s also lost more than 20 pounds.

“You know what—I am happy to be alive,” he says.

“I don’t need to be in perfect shape.”

After the stabbing, Christopher Melendez, 19, was treated for injuries and taken to jail where he was held on $20,000 bond. He is currently being tried with one count of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Oliver has not attended any of Melendez’s hearings and prefers not to.

“He made a mistake—he’s 19 years old. It could have been anyone,” says Oliver. “I don’t think it is to the extent where you can almost play God and say that I am going to take someone’s life away for ever.

by Diane Perez

©2004 College of Journalism and Communications