The concierge who was stabbed at an apartment building in Toronto's upscale Rosedale neighbourhood last week is recovering and will be released from hospital today.

The victim, a 67-year-old man whose name is under publication ban, spoke to CBC News from his hospital room on Saturday, where he was surrounded by family.

He had previously been in critical condition after police say he was stabbed multiple times with a large kitchen knife at an apartment building on Thursday in one of Toronto's wealthiest neighbourhoods.

"I can't understand how this can happen," he said. "Never, would you expect something like this."

'I didn't know what to do'

He said he had been working at the building for 26 years with no problems, and gets along well with the residents there.

"Most people know me," he said. "I've also always been a very positive person."

He said he'd only seen the woman who stabbed him once before she attacked him, unprovoked, on Thursday as he was helping to carry her boxes down from her apartment.

He said he was bent over to pick up a box when she attacked him from behind with a knife and stabbed him in the hip, he said. He was able to swerve and dodge subsequent swings.

Renowned architect charged

"Luckily, I escaped," he said. "I didn't know what to do."

Ellis Kirkland has been charged with attempted murder. (Toronto Police Service) The attack sparked a city-wide manhunt and ended in the arrest of Ellis Kirkland, 60, an internationally renowned architect and philanthropist who lives in the building.

She was arrested Thursday on the 27th floor of a balcony of Toronto's Town Inn Suites, 620 Church St., after two police officers rappelled down from the floor above.

Kirkland has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons offences.

Police sources said Kirkland and the victim knew each other, but the stabbing was not a domestic dispute.

Kirkland — a Malta-born Harvard graduate, provincial lobbyist and former vice-president of the non-profit NATO Association of Canada — is scheduled to appear in mental health court on Monday.