One of the tourists attacked by militants at a Red Sea hotel in Egypt has told reporters about the moment he thought he was going to die.

Sam Eric Olovsson from Sweden was one of three people stabbed — the other two were Austrian tourists — when armed assailants attacked at the Bella Vista hotel in Hurghada on Friday.

Sammie Olovsson, a 27-year-old tourist from Sweden, recovers in bed at the Nile hospital in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Hurghada on Saturday after he was attacked the previous day at the Bella Vista Resort. (Mohamed el-Shahed/AFP/Getty Images)

"Me and my father were having a meal and suddenly a guy come from behind and he put an arm in front of me and tried to stab me and I don't notice it then, but I get one stab here at that time and I think he tried to hit my chest — hit my heart," Olovsson told reporters on Saturday as he lay in his hospital bed.

"But I am stronger than him and I push him away. So I stand up and he stabbed me here one time and he said 'Go down' in English, and it's with an accent.

"And then, I don't understand, everything happened so quickly. And I look at them, there are two guys. One of, both of them, have a knife in the right hand and something that looks like a pistol, like a gun, in the left hand. Something black.

Fear of bleeding to death

"And I am shocked. I don't know what to do. And he sliced me here in the neck and then he shoved his knife here and I go to the ground. And I bleed here. A lot from my neck. I felt I will bleed to death. At that point, I'm saying to my father I think I will bleed to death right now," Olovsson said.

.Security forces shot and killed at least one of the attackers after they stormed the beachside hotel, officials said, though there was no immediate information on the other.

Two Austrians were also injured in the attack. (Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)

Security sources said the attackers had arrived by sea and also carried a gun and a suicide belt. Officials said officers had tightened checks across the area and shut off roads.

"The shot I heard was the shot that killed one of the criminals. So I think it was just crazy guys," Olovsson said. "It can happen anytime, anywhere. It's just a bad coincidence that I was there. And some crazy guys come in and they stab me,"

Saturday morning saw an increased security presence outside the hotel. Armed men stood watch over Western tourists entering and exiting the area, which still bore the blood stains of the attack.

Egypt is fighting a wave of Islamist militancy, which began as attacks on security forces in remote regions of the Sinai, but is increasingly focusing on targets previously considered safe such as the tourist resorts on the Red Sea. (Google)

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but one witness said he could see a man waving a black flag with white writing during the assault.

Egypt is fighting a wave of Islamist militancy and Islamic State, which has a black and white flag, claimed responsibility for the downing of a Russian passenger plane in October, killing all 224 people on board, most of them tourists returning home from the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, across the water from Hurghada.

Tourism is critical to the Egyptian economy as a source of hard currency, but has been ravaged by years of political turmoil since the revolution that ousted veteran president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.