Concourse Bar stabbing: Sydney manager ‘lucky’ to be alive after attack
The employee stabbed in a fight at a CBD lingerie bar at the weekend said the blade ended up only millimetres from his heart and it was training from a previous job that helped save him.
NSW
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Battered and bruised, Lawrence D’iapico-Bien still bears the marks from the night which almost cost him his life.
The 34 year-old manager at Sydney CBD lingerie bar Concourse Bar was left with two five centimetre stab wounds, thirteen stitches and plenty of bruises when he was stabbed twice during a drunken brawl.
Mr D’iapico-Bien spent three nights in St Vincent’s Hospital in a serious condition after the alleged attack, which collapsed his left lung and saw the blade come within 20 millimetres of his heart.
The 34 year-old, who has worked at the bar for 18 months, told The Daily Telegraph the violence escalated when he allegedly asked a group of men to stop smoking inside the Wynyard Station bar before 6pm on November 5.
An argument ensued, before the 34 year-old was allegedly punched repeatedly and then stabbed.
Mr D’iapico-Bien said he “didn’t remember much” from the moments before the violent incident but his injuries had left him “minutes” from death.
“I’d been hit in the head a few times before (the stabbing), and then it felt like someone punched me in the back… I put my hand around there and there was a lot of blood,” he said.
An Australian Defence Force veteran who served as a paratrooper on tours to Afghanistan and East Timor, Mr D’iapico said his army training was what kept him alive in the moments after he was stabbed.
“I tried to stay calm, and tell the other staff what to do, I knew if I panicked it’d exacerbate the injury, so I just kept breathing,” he said.
“It was just applying pressure, but I was really struggling to breathe before the paramedics arrived, the pain got overwhelming.”
Now recovering at home, the 34 year-old said the seriousness of his injuries didn’t dawn on him until several days later.
“The doctors told me I had a pneumothorax, which is when your lung collapses and air gets into that area… it crushes your heart and everything, you can die in five minutes from it,” Mr D’iapico-Bien said.
“The paramedics had to decompress my chest on the spot. And then it wasn’t until after when one of my emergency doctor friends told me how close I was (to death) later on, minutes away, I went “Oh wow”.
“Then it dawned on me how close the blade was to my heart too. I feel quite lucky, I’m just taking each day as it comes.”
The 34 year-old said he would “hopefully” return to work in the coming weeks as his wounds continue to heal.
Concourse bar owner Rob Di Francesco said he was “horrified” by the incident at his establishment and said it had “scarred” staff.
“We’re family, here, this is a family-owned business and we’ve never had anything this serious happen in the 13 years Concourse has been open,” Mr Di Francesco said.
“We we’ve come through the lockout laws, then hit hard by the pandemic...Lawrence is my only full-time staff member, my other staff are too frightened to return to work after what’s happened. We have a reputation for doing the right thing here. We just hope justice will be served.”
Four men aged 31, 29, 26 and 19 have been charged following the incident and were granted bail.
All four remain before the courts.
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