A STUDENT has told how an ambulance crew performed a life-saving emergency operation on him on a motorway after he had been stabbed in the heart.

Taylor Wells said that it was not until after he had jumped from the roof his friend’s flat on to the pavement and went for help that he realised he had been stabbed in the incident in Queensbury on July 21.

The 23-year-old trainee actor said he passed out on the pavement and only later did he find out how close he came to death.

He said: “I hadn’t realised when it happened that I was stabbed.

“They did an operation in the ambulance.

“I didn’t wake up for three days. They must have told me when they took the bandages off and I realised that’s what my torso is like.

“I was stabbed once in the heart and once in the lung.”

He said the ambulance crew had to break his sternum and put two drains into his chest on the way to Leeds General Infirmary.

An air ambulance was called but he was in such a serious condition, medics could not wait for it to land,

“I still don’t know if they put something in there.”

He said the doctors were not really concerned about the damage caused but more that there was no infection and once they realised he was fine he was allowed out and was only in hospital for a week and a half.

He has now been left with scars across and down his chest.

“I’m trying to be normal but it’s not normal.”

He said he and his friends Olivia Pentelow, 21, and Jake Oldfield, 20, who were also involved in the incident, had suffered from nightmares.

“We’re all suffering a bit mentally.”

Mr Wells, who is studying performance art at Bradford School of Creative Arts, is now staying with his mum and dad while he recuperates from the ordeal.

He said: “I’m all right. I’m walking, talking and healing though I’m in a lot of pain.”

He thanked everyone for the support he had received which included a GoFundMe page set up by his mum Alex to help towards him and his friends’ care fees, rent for his flat so he did not lose it and also for equipment to help him adapt to normal life again.

So far £1,960 has been pledged for the fundraiser by 73 people.

Mr Wells added: “At the time I felt why did I need that but I’m realising I can’t go back to work.”

He works at the Deichmann shoe shop in The Broadway shopping centre but found that he now cannot lift anything.

Despite his horrific sounding injuries, a doctor at LGI told him he had sustained no long-term damage and it would take six months for him to make a physical recovery.

“I’m just glad to have woken up.”

l An 18-year-old man has appeared before magistrates charged with attempted murder. Leon Dowbenko, of Fairfax Road, Bradford, will next appear at Bradford Crown Court on August 21.