MILAN, Oct 28: Being in top physical form helped Spanish footballer Pablo Marí avoid life-threatening injuries in a knife attack at an Italian shopping center, the surgeon who operated on his wounded back said Friday.
“The surgery was a relatively simple one. Luckily there were only two damaged muscles,” said Osvaldo Chiara, the director of the general surgery and trauma team at the Niguarda hospital in Milan. “(Marí’s) muscular mass is such that the length of the knife that was used couldn’t pass through the rib cage and hit his lung.”
Monza, the Serie A club that Marí plays for on loan from Arsenal, said that Marí should spend another “two or three days” recovering at the hospital.
The club added that Marí will likely need two months of rest before resuming physical activity, while Monza CEO Adriano Galliani said it would likely be three months before Marí played again.
Galliani said that the squad was “in shock” and had asked Serie A to postpone its next game, against Bologna on Monday.
The 29-year-old Marí called himself “lucky” to survive following injuries to his back and mouth.
Five people were stabbed Thursday and one was killed after a man grabbed a knife from a supermarket shelf, authorities said. Police arrested a 46-year-old Italian man suspected in the attack at a shopping center in Assago, a suburb of Milan, carabinieri said. “He told me he had ‘suerte’ (luck), because, ‘today I saw someone else die,’ Galliani said after visiting Marí at the hospital late Thursday. (AP)
