You're being held at knifepoint,
and your assailant is not messing around.
You gave him your wallet,
but he's still coming towards you
with his long sharp blade.
Could you defend yourself?
Or should you just try to run away?
Knives can be deadly when they're
in the wrong hands.
It's much easier to get a knife
than a firearm,
and even kitchen knives can kill you
when used as weapons.
In 2019, in the U.S., there were 117,854
aggravated assaults involving knives
or other cutting instruments.
Your odds of being attacked with a knife
and dying depend on where
in the world you are.
In the U.S.,
guns are responsible for 36% of murders,
while knife attacks
account for 10% of homicides.
In Europe,
knives are involved in 43% of murders.
In countries with strict gun control laws,
carrying a knife is a common practice.
Recently,
northern Europe has seen an increase in
the number of stabbing deaths,
especially in people between the ages
of 15 and 24.
In England, in 2015,
a 19-year-old woman was stabbed
100 times by her boyfriend.
He stabbed her in the neck with so much
force that the blade snapped.
The victim survived because she
pretended to be dead to stop the attack.
Later, she made her way to a bus,
and the bus driver called the police.
She was rushed to the hospital with
punctures in both lungs
and needed more than 500 stitches.
An associate of the Fight Smart website
studied more than 200 knife attacks
recorded by CCTV
security cameras worldwide.
And learned that the most common attack
is straight stabs followed by grabbing
clothing with the left hand.
And since 90% of the attackers
are right-handed,
most victims are wounded
on their left sides.
So, protect your left side,
and don’t stand still.
Moving around makes you
a harder target to hit.
If you see a person coming
at you with a knife,
the best way to deal with it
is to de-escalate the situation.
Tell them you have no interest in a fight.
And try to stay calm, so you can find a way
to escape if possible.
If it's not possible
and the attacker lunges at you,
move away from the knife
and try to knock it out of
the attacker’s hand.
You can also use the attacker’s
momentum against them,
so they lose their balance and fall.
Then take advantage of that distraction
and run as fast as you can.
If you see a knife coming directly at you,
your instinct might tell you to grab
the knife before it pierces your body,
but you’ll be cut in your hand,
and that could damage your muscles.
Oh, and don't even think about
turning your back on the attacker.
Instead, protect your back,
particularly above your hips.
That's where your liver, kidneys, spleen
and intestines are,
and you are vulnerable.
Stab wounds are serious.
And depending on the length of the blade
and where you are punctured,
they can be fatal.
If a major vein or artery
in your body gets cut,
you could bleed to death.
If the knife cuts deeply into a blood vessel,
you’ll bleed out faster.
So, if the knife is still in the wound,
do not try to remove it.
Instead, apply pressure to the whole area
to help reduce the bleeding until
you get medical attention.
That was scary.
You managed to survive a knife attack.
But what if you get shot?
We can help you with that too.