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    • St. Augustine pardoned attacker who randomly stabbed priest
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    St. Augustine pardoned attacker who randomly stabbed priest

    Harry Posted on

    Rich Donnelly
    | First Coast News

    He is a man of faith who believes he has a duty to help other people. Pastor Matt Marino, St. He spoke with a Times-Union partner two weeks after he nearly died while waiting for breakfast in St. Augustine. First Coast News about now He was stabbed and lay bleeding hoping for help.

    “I’m sitting in the breakfast room with a friend,” lead pastor Marino said. Trinity Parish Episcopal Churchin question. “This girl walks by, turns, looks at me and says something like ‘I have problems’ and as a priest I instinctively say ‘tell me your story’ I lean forward and she pulls out a knife and points it at me I stab it in my chest and pull it back , I just looked down and said ‘you stabbed me’.”

    The attack took place around 08:00 on the morning of October 23. San Marco Boulevard St. In Augustine. Marino fell to the ground and started coughing up blood.

    “I turn and look at the sky and the sky is really grey; I remember sitting and thinking: ‘This is a really weird way to die, I had a lot of important meetings today,'” he said. “Then I remember thinking I don’t want to go like this, this seems pointless and random and not today, God, and I felt God say okay.”

    Priest talks about first responders, pain and God’s plan after stabbing

    Fire truck responding to 911 call priest three years ago. Additionally, the fire chief told him that a combat chest seal, a bandage used to treat chest wounds, was found in the car of a Customs and Border Protection training officer who stopped to help.

    “Who knows why random things happen,” Marino said. “I know something completely random happened to me and then a series of random things conspired to make sure I was still here today.”

    Arieana Rose Gibbs, 22, is charged with attempted second-degree murder in the attack. After pleading not guilty, his next court date was scheduled for Dec. 2 and he remains in jail without bail.

    Marino said he was grateful for their help first responders and medical professionals. During this terrible ordeal, he found comfort in prayer and faith that God would save him.

    “I hear the first responders trying to figure out where to take him because he’s not going to survive the transport and I just remember sitting there thinking ‘hmm, we’ll see,'” she said.

    Marino was rushed away HCA Florida Memorial Hospital He suffered a severed pulmonary artery and a collapsed lung in Jacksonville. The journey would take 40 minutes.

    “I heard the trauma surgeons at the hospital tell me I lost 2½ units of blood, which is half of my blood,” Marino said. “Even though I kept hearing people say this guy wasn’t going to make it, I think I always thought back to that first prayer and I didn’t hear a voice or see any lights, I just had a feeling that everything was going to be okay.”

    He remained in intensive care for six days.

    “I’m still in pain, all said and done, I probably had five to six feet of tubes going in and out at one point, and the places where those tubes go in and out are still painful; getting back to full breathing range is painful,” he said in question. “I’m seeing a therapist and trauma specialist.”

    Marino is taking things slowly and just last week in St. Augustine also started going for walks. He does not have a timetable for resuming services at Trinity Parish.

    “My internal wiring says yesterday, but my therapists and doctors are telling me to wait a while,” Marino said. “I miss church, I miss people, I miss work.”

    Father Matt Marino forgave his attacker

    Marino said his physical pain will heal and he hopes his attacker will too.

    “Whatever this poor girl was going through, it was definitely worse for her,” he said. “Who says I’m going to wake up on Wednesday morning and go stab people?”

    For Marino, forgiving his attacker is the most fundamental indicator of the faith to which he devoted his life.

    “The law will do what the law will do and make sure the community is safe and hopefully get help from it,” Marino said. “But I have no ill will, and when the time comes to see him, I will tell him that I forgive him completely and completely.”

    “This is Christianity, Christianity is that you are forgiven through the love of Jesus,” he said. “How can I not forgive him, I have been forgiven so many times, how can I not extend that forgiveness?”

    When you return to work Trinity DistrictHe hopes to continue his ministry helping young people like the young woman who stabbed him.

    “I don’t know what this means to me,” Marino said. “Personally, in my ministry, I know that I want to make sure that she knows that she is free from my perspective. … I hope that this will save Arieana, because if you stab a priest at breakfast in one state, that’s what the death penalty looks like.”

    “It might be a chance for him that I’m alive,” he said.

    Harry
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