Massachusetts Man: Gruesome Stabbing ‘Steered Me in the Right Direction'

It's been six months since Christopher Nickerson walked into a hospital with his intestine hanging out of his stomach.

Nickerson, who then lived in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, was walking in the Hyannis section of Barnstable on Oct. 24, 2015, when he says he happened upon a domestic incident and intervened.

"I came across a couple arguing in the road," Nickerson, now 41, recalled Saturday in a phone interview with necn. "I got involved to try to help her, and he ended up stabbing me."

Nickerson, who acknowledges that he had been under the influence of drugs and alcohol, walked to Cape Cod Hospital - his intestine unruptured, but hanging from his body.

While the injury may have been traumatic, Nickerson is adamant that it saved him.

"It was a wakeup call from God," Nickerson said. "It steered me in the right direction."

Nickerson was on a different road before the stabbing - following some personal losses, he had spent the prior 11 years as a drug addict and an alcoholic. And things didn't get easier quickly.

He spent four weeks in the hospital, then more time at the Cape Heritage Nursing Home in Sandwich.

"I ended up losing everything - I had no place to go," he said. "I became homeless."

He was working toward recovery from the stabbing when he reconnected with his mother - he hadn't seen her in 10 years. He bumped into his brother at the hospital and got her number from him.

Within a few days, Nickerson's mother, who had also been homeless, got him into the Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center in Bridgewater. From there, he went to Thayer TSS in Worcester.

That was where a counselor asked him an important question - "How do you feel about living on a farm?"

"I've got a construction background," he replied. "I guess I could live on a farm. That sounds like a great idea."

And so he landed in Oakham, a rural town west of Worcester, at Dismas Family Farm - described on its website as "a holistic, rehabilitative and vocational reentry model."

"It's a fully functional, working farm," Nickerson explained.

The farm has animals. Residents grow vegetables to sell at farmers markets.

Nickerson is excited for the future - his time at Dismas, away from the temptations and the constant reminders that come with city life, has helped him move forward.

"You don't hear sirens going by every night. You don't hear gunshots. You don't hear helicopters flying overhead," Nickerson said. "This is God's country. Why would you not want to enjoy it? How could you not get overjoyed and have a feeling of wonder?"

Despite the gruesome nature of the injury, Nickerson's physical health has improved dramatically.

"Other than having the scars, there isn't really any lingering effect," he said. "I don't have any nightmares from it. It was a traumatic experienced, but I was in a blackout - I think my mind kind of erased it."

Understandably, he still thinks back to that night. He's disappointed Barnstable Police never caught the suspect. And he hopes that the man is captured so that he doesn't hurt anyone else.

But he considers his survival nothing short of a miracle - he walked to the hospital without dying, and he managed to tell police of his medical allergies before he passed out. Were he given anesthesia, the results could have been tragic. And he calls the attack a blessing in disguise - a much-needed catalyst for change.

"Had I not been under the influence, I would never have ended up in that part of town in that part of night," Nickerson said. "It's my fault that I was there - but the fact that I didn't die - that was God."

Nickerson's faith is not a traditional one, but it has carried him.

"I'm not a religious person," he said. "But I've also come to realize that there's a big difference between religion and faith. And for me, faith is having an understanding with a higher power that I understand for myself. It doesn't matter what other people think about that, I understand it."

And even with all the pain he's suffered, the future excites Nickerson.

"I've got a long road ahead of me," he said. "I think I've actually got it."

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