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Attackers Lose Blade In Victim

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By DAVID KRAUT and LISA A. DAVIS

dkraut@wfla.com ldavis@tampatrib.com

Published: February 4, 2009

ELFERS - Brian "David" Shaw thought he was going to have a few drinks with an old girlfriend after a Super Bowl party early Monday and ended up with a knife in the gut.

Resting in a bed at Community Hospital in New Port Richey on Tuesday, Shaw said he knew he had been cut but didn't know a blade had broken off in his abdomen until his laceration was sewn up and he continued having pain.

An MRI later revealed the blade, and surgeons removed it, Shaw said.

"I was a little stunned," he said, but added it really wasn't a big deal. "Sew me up. Fix me up. I'll be fine."

Pasco County detectives are searching for two attackers, sheriff's office spokesman Kevin Doll said.

According to sheriff's office reports and Shaw's account Tuesday, this is what happened:

Just before 2 a.m., Shaw and Jessica Duke got to her grandfather's home, 4445 Spring Lake Court, where she also lives. The door was locked, and Duke had lost her keys. They tried to get in through a sliding glass door in the back, and two men with white shirts tied around their faces attacked him.

"They pushed me on the bed and started hitting me and so on. I was trying to fight back. I hit one of them with a beer bottle," Shaw said from his hospital bed.

Shaw had puncture wounds and lacerations to the abdomen, head and ear. He doesn't know which injury was inflicted when. He told detectives he had been drinking heavily before the attack.

When the attackers left, they took his wallet, containing $60, Shaw said, and they left something in that same front left pocket: the knife handle.

Shaw and Duke went to the hospital once he realized the extent of his injuries. She was not injured.

Shaw, of Tampa, said he was surprised that after serving in Afghanistan with the National Guard and coming home unscathed, he returned and had this happen.

"It's kinda ridiculous," he said.

Reporter Lisa A. Davis can be reached at (727) 815-1083.

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