Scunthorpe United defender Jonathan Gjoshe has spoken publicly for the first time about being stabbed seven times during a mass knife attack on a train traveling through Cambridgeshire last November, six months after the incident that left him fearing for both his life and his career.
Gjoshe, 23, was traveling from Doncaster back to his home in London on November 1, just weeks into his first season with the club. About an hour into the journey, he became one of 11 passengers seriously injured in the attack.
"I was on the train, just chilling. Suddenly, someone's come over my shoulder, and stabbed me," he told BBC Sport.
The defender described reacting on instinct after the first blow.
"I got stabbed on the shoulder first," he said. "I remember jumping over the table, jumping over the chairs. I was just running down the corridor, telling people, 'there's a guy with a knife, run, I've been stabbed, run, run, run'. I was screaming. I think I was the first person that got stabbed. I felt the pain. But adrenaline kicked in."
"That split second, me jumping over the table, saved me. All I thought about was just running for my life, getting off that train. As I got down to the first or second carriage, I pulled the alarm, and was just drenched with blood."
The train made an emergency stop at Huntingdon, where armed police were waiting. After receiving first aid from a fellow passenger, Gjoshe made his way to the station car park, where paramedics transported him to the hospital.
Surgery revealed seven wounds to his bicep, shoulder and arm. Doctors told him the knife had come close to a nerve. "It's not much from the nerve. You're very lucky," he recalled being told.
"I was thinking I wasn't going to see my family again, if I died, and that was the main worry for me," he said. "Normally I would drive back down to London. That was the first time I got on a train to go back. What's the chance of that happening? It's crazy."
Gjoshe declined numerous interview requests in the months that followed, focusing instead on rehabilitation. He did not return to full training until March.
"A big relief. I started to get the movement of my arm, day by day it was getting better. It was an amazing feeling," he said of the return. He is now searching for a new club.