SANJAY Sumer doesn’t remember much of the night he was nearly stabbed to death.

The horrific events will stay with him forever in the eye he has lost, the scar running from his neck to his groin, the restricted movement in his shoulder and the scars on his major internal organs.

But the 40-year-old told The Sunday Times this week he just felt lucky to be alive.

Camera Icon Sanjay Sumer lost an eye in the unprovoked attack. Credit: Supplied, Facebook

Mr Sumer was stabbed in a frenzied, unprovoked attack in a Perth carpark last May, coming to the aid of a woman arguing with a man.

He had met the couple minutes earlier at a nearby restaurant — and had even bought them a round of drinks — when a blonde woman ran by yelling: “He’s going to kill her.”

Mr Sumer didn’t hesitate, but if it wasn’t for Zeda Connolly, a homeless woman who leapt to his aid, he wouldn’t have survived what happened next.

“I’ve seen some grainy CCTV footage of myself walking up with my hands out saying, ‘hey, hey’ — I can’t remember exactly what I said — but he sort of lashed out and slashed me across my shoulder and then continued to stab me,” Mr Sumer said. “I’ve fallen to the ground and then he’s sunk the knife in my left eye. It got stuck in my eye socket.”

Ms Connolly this week recalled how she shouted to her friend “call the cops” as she jumped out of a car to help.

“I had to run around the other side of them otherwise I would have pepper-sprayed poor Sanjay, who was getting stabbed all over the body and got stabbed in the face,” she said. “I remember (the attacker) looked up at me like you’d disturb an angry dog eating a meal.”

Camera Icon Sanjay Sumer’s when he was recovering from the attack in hospital. Credit: Supplied, Sanjay Sumer

The attacker threw the knife away and ran off towards McIver Station. Ms Connolly gave chase but couldn’t catch him.

When she returned to the Pier St carpark, her friend and a group of people from a nearby bar were applying pressure on Mr Sumer’s wounds.

“I just thought, if I don’t do something, this guy’s going to die,” Ms Connolly said.

Mr Sumer “died” twice in the next few hours — once in the ambulance on the way to hospital, and again while having a scan.

He was operated on for three days and was in hospital for weeks.

The Queensland man, who was in Perth on a brief business trip, said he owed his life to Ms Connolly.

“She’s an absolute hero,” he said. “Even knowing some person was getting stabbed, she just approached with pepper spray which she had on her from the fact that she was homeless herself and she used to carry that for protection.”

WA police detective Ian Skilton has nominated Ms Connolly for a Pride of Australia Medal.

“I’ve been to many incidents and this is the bravest act I’ve seen,” he said. “She said she’d just done what anyone else would have done. I had to tell her that in this day and age, everybody else would have run in the other direction.”

To nominate a hero go to: perthnow.com.au/news/pride-of-australia