AFL 2024: Steve Johnson credits quick thinking nurse for helping him after life-threatening knife accident

Steve Johnson counts himself very lucky that he didn’t do more damage to himself in a freak knife accident and has praised a quick thinking hero who helped save his life.

MELBOURNE, SEPTEMBER 20, 2022: Steve Johnson with the 2022 AFL Premiership Cup. Picture: Mark Stewart

Geelong legend Steve Johnson has praised the quick-thinking hero who helped save his life after puncturing his abdomen in an horrific knife accident.

Johnson, 40, said he thought he could die after a recently-purchased knife in a bag he was carrying pierced deep into his abdomen “like a knife through butter”.

The champion goal kicker knocked the knife into himself as he bumped his front gate open, and said he was saved by a passer-by who was also a registered nurse.

The nurse, who was walking his pet dog at the time, quickly applied pressure to Johnson’s deep wound to stop the heavy bleeding and called the hospital on the way to help prepare for immediate surgery.

Former Geelong Footballer Steve Johnson posted a picture from hospital showing his injuries after stabbing himself with a knife. Picture: Instagram.

“It was the first time where it crosses your mind or been in that mindset, ‘I might be dying here’,” Johnson told this masthead.

“Before going into surgery Erin said to one of the doctors ‘What’s the go? And they said ‘There were no guarantees’.

“It’s not 100 per cent I was going to be OK. So before going into surgery I was thinking ‘I hope I wake up’.

“I’m just so incredibly grateful the nurse, Jason, was there, and had that calm mind, and happened to be walking past our house because it’s a very quiet street and it’s unusual to see someone walking past.

“But he saved me along with the medical staff at the Wangaratta hospital, so thanks so much to all of those people and my family including my wife Erin.”

Johnson underwent surgery on his abdomen and bowel on Monday night and remained in hospital on Tuesday. He is expected to make a full recovery.

The triple premiership Cat and former GWS forward, who has become a popular Triple M football broadcaster, said he gouged his stomach in an unfortunate accident following his son’s birthday.

Steve Johnson is a three-time premiership player with Geelong and won the Norm Smith Medal in the 2007 decider.

He was getting out of his car with his wife and his three children when the knife cut through the bag and into his abdomen.

The knife, which was used to cut his son Archie’s 12th birthday cake, was recently gifted to him as part of a set by a friend who is also in the butcher trade.

“It was just really freakish how it happened,” he said.

“We were going inside the house but my little girl couldn’t open the gate, so I held on to one bag and pushed against it (to open the gate) but the knife was in that bag.

“It just went straight into me.

“At the same time, it just so happened this couple was walking past out front, and one was a nurse.

“I’ve yelled out, ‘Quick, Erin, jump in the car and take me to the hospital’. I said ‘The knife has gone through my stomach’.

“That’s when the bloke said to me ‘I’m a nurse, let me come and help’, and he got a towel and said we need to put as much pressure on it as we can.

“He took me to hospital and called them on the way and they knew who he was and he explained everything. He said it was a severe injury and I’d need surgery immediately.”

The medical staff were waiting out the front when Johnson arrived at Wangaratta Hospital. He underwent surgery shortly after.

Steve Johnson is the reigning premiership coach of Ovens and Murray league powerhouse, the Yarrawonga Pigeons. Picture Yuri Kouzmin

“I was stressing because my kids had seen the whole thing,” Johnson said.

“But luckily I avoided any serious damage to my bowel.

“The knife got right to the edge of my bowel.”

Johnson said the nurse, who was an Essendon supporter, had visited him in hospital on Tuesday along with former premiership teammate and best mate Shannon Byrnes.

Johnson said the mate who gifted him the knife recently visited him at home in Yarrawonga, and criticised his blunt knives, before bringing over some new ones.

“One of them was the one we took and it was in the bag and it was just incredibly sharp,” he said.

“It just sliced straight through my abs.”

Johnson led Yarrawonga to the Ovens and Murray Football League senior premiership as senior coach last year and kicked 516 goals across 293 AFL games as one of the greatest forwards of the modern era.