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SYDNEY - Tom Pritchard, the brother of Kiwis rugby league forward Frank Pritchard, says he was clinically dead for two minutes after being stabbed in a Sydney street brawl.
Frank Pritchard, a New Zealand rugby league international and Penrith Panthers star, was stabbed twice in the hand while Tom, an aspiring rugby league player, was stabbed in the heart on February 17.
Tom, 20, had open heart surgery in Liverpool Hospital on Saturday, and has now spoken publicly for the first time about his ordeal.
"I couldn't remember anything when I woke up (from the coma)," News Ltd papers quoted him as saying.
"It was like I had been knocked out, like I had woken up from a very long sleep."
Frank said he had never been so scared as when he was speeding to hospital in a car trying to resuscitate his brother.
"He had no heartbeat when he came into the hospital. My friends were trying to resuscitate him, trying to stop the bleeding," Frank said.
News Ltd reports Tom was clinically dead for two minutes before being revived at the hospital.
A man accused of stabbing the Pritchard brothers has been charged with four counts of malicious wounding.
Stephen Peter Lee, 24, was bailed to reappear in Liverpool Local Court on April 4.
- AAP
