A have-a-go-hero teenager has revealed how he thought it was ‘game over’ after he was stabbed in the neck and lung while chasing a mugger in Tenerife on the last day of a lads’ holiday.
Theo Wright, 18, was left fighting for his life in a pool of blood after he courageously sprinted after a thief who had just snatched a friend’s mobile phone in the early hours of Tuesday.
Two quick-thinking Ukrainian holidaymakers gave him first aid as paramedics raced to the scene in Playa de las Americas, on what was meant to be Theo’s final night on the island.
Initial reports said he was in a critical condition, but doctors now say he is expected to make a full recovery – though he will be unable to fly home for at least two weeks because of the knife wound to his lung.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail from his hospital bed, with his mother Caroline at his side, Theo, from Royton near Oldham, said: ‘I really thought it was game over. I thought I was going to die because of the amount of blood on the floor.
‘It was only when I saw that, it dawned on me I’d been stabbed twice – in the neck and in the lung. It could have been really bad, but I’m alive and that’s the main thing.’
Theo said the ordeal began when he was outside a club getting some fresh air with a girl who was approached by a man asking to use her phone.
‘She said “No” and he said “It’s an emergency”,’ Theo recalled. ‘So I said, “Go on, it might be serious.”
Theo Wright, 18, thought it was ‘game over’ after he was stabbed in the neck and lung while chasing a mugger in Tenerife on the last day of a lads’ holiday
Theo’s mother Caroline, 56, flew to Tenerife in a panic after receiving a 3am phone call to say her only child had been stabbed
Theo was left fighting for his life in a pool of blood after he courageously sprinted after a thief who snatched a friend’s mobile phone in the early hours of Tuesday
‘She handed it over and he just took off. I sprinted after him – I didn’t mean to be a hero or anything, I just wanted to help her get her phone back.’
Theo said he caught up with the man and placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
‘He just swung round and that must have been when he stabbed me twice,’ he said. ‘I tried to run again but couldn’t, and I just fell to the floor.
‘That’s when two Ukrainian guys helped me with first aid. I saw all the blood and really thought I was brown bread.’
Theo, an electrical engineering student who recently passed his driving test, added: ‘I don’t regret what I did. I would do it again – but it’s embarrassing being called a hero.
‘A real hero would have got the phone back. But at least I’m still alive, and that’s what counts.’
His mother Caroline, 56, a leisure centre manager, flew to Tenerife in a panic after receiving a 3am phone call to say her only child had been stabbed.
The family have since set up a GoFundMe page to help cover Caroline’s interim expenses while she remains abroad at Theo’s bedside with a target of £5,000. More than £4,500 has already been raised.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help cover Caroline’s interim expenses while she stays with her Theo as he recovers
Doctors have told Theo that he will not be able to fly home until he is given the all-clear
Catching the first available flight to Tenerife hours later, she said: ‘I was in a blind panic. At first they said it was his thigh and shoulder, but when I got here I realised it was his lung and neck.
‘A few millimetres either way and it could have been his jugular. It would have been a different story.’
She added: ‘This was his first lads’ holiday and I’d spent the whole five days worrying. We got to the last day and I thought, “That’s gone OK.” Then I got the phone call every parent dreads.’
Theo remains in hospital with a drainage bag in his lung and is unable to fly until doctors give the all-clear.
Caroline said: ‘The problem is he’s got exams as part of his course, so we’re hoping the college will be understanding.
‘I told him he was mad for doing what he did – but that’s the kind of boy he is. I can just picture him like a whippet after him.’
No arrests are yet thought to have made, although police have tasked a specialist team with trying to identify and detain the knifeman.
Local reports say the attacker ‘may have been Moroccan’ although there is no official confirmation.
A spokesman for a regional government emergency response centre said: ‘An 18-year-old man has been seriously injured after being stabbed in Rafael Puig Lluvina Avenue in Playa de las Americas.
‘The victim was transferred to the Hospital Universitario Hospiten Sur after being stabilised at the scene.’
Theo was stabbed near a bar called Oasis and the area where the stabbing took place is hugely popular with British holidaymakers.