Photo Credit: OhevChadashot / Rotter.net

(JNi.media) “The terrorist attack saved my life,” Daniel Cohen, 31, who was injured on Monday, Nov. 2, in a stabbing attack in Rishon Lezion, told NRG. Cohen, a kashrut supervisor, was stabbed several times in his upper body and was rushed to the hospital, where doctors discovered a dangerous tumor in his colon, and saved his life.

“I was in the middle of work in Rishon Letzion,” Cohen recalled on Wednesday. “I was at the central bus station and waited for a local bus to take me to my next appointment. I waited for the bus and did not see anything suspicious. Then I moved a little and suddenly the terrorist attacked me and choked me.”




I felt my wrist almost being dislodged,” Cohen continued. “He pulled out his knife and tried to cut off my head. I tried with my hand to push it away and then he tried to stick the knife in my throat. I tilted my head and then he hit me in the jaw, near the ear. He knocked me down to the floor and then stabbed me several times, puncturing along the left side of my body, in the chest, the abdomen and the shoulder.”

“I grabbed his leg and tried to get up,” Cohen related. “I hit him, but couldn’t take away his knife. A passerby tried to throw a trash can in our direction and then the terrorist ran and I ran, too. I was in very serious condition. I knocked for the driver to open the bus door for me. The driver quickly let me into the bus. I reclined in the back seat. They tried to stop the bleeding. They asked me what happened and I groaned in pain. I started to say Shema Israel (which religious Jews say before going to sleep and before giving up the ghost).”

Except that later on it turned out that the attack was very lucky for Daniel Cohen. “When MDA arrived I was still conscious, we reached Assaf Harofeh Hospital — there they put me to sleep,” he said. “I went into a four hour surgery. The surgery went well, they removed the spleen and a piece of liver. My intestines were damaged.”

Then, “as they were treating these organs, they discovered over my colon a tumor I did not know I had. They cut this growth and stitched me and everything,” Cohen said. “Thank God I’ve reached the point within a week that I’m in good shape. They told me they discovered the tumor during the operation. If they hadn’t cut it, it could have gotten worse.”

A resident of Bnei Brak, Cohen is married and the father of five girls. “My wife took it very hard,” he said. “I’m staying in my parents’ home now for rehabilitation, for rest. There’s some pain, but there’s simple faith, especially in the situation we’re in. A person does not understand where a stabbing can lead him. I’m getting stronger, little by little.”