From Travel Nurse to Stabbing Victim in a Foreign Country—How I Survived the Unthinkable

This is a guest post, written by travel nurse Nick Cullivan.

Hi, I’m Nick, but you can call me Francisco. I’m a travel nurse from Boston, and on July 13, 2024, at 12:36 am, I was STABBED in Colombia. It hurt wicked bad.. I spent just over two weeks at Hospital Universitario San Ignacio in Bogotá, and another two weeks at ORMC in Orlando, FL.

Ten minutes from bleeding to death, five blood transfusions, six surgeries,(five of which took place in Bogota), air ambulance to Orlando, MRSA infection, twenty-three days without oral intake, a paralytic ileus, someone STOLE my BELLY BUTTON, most of my hair FELL OUT, no hablo Espanol, y mucho mas!

After the completion of my last travel nursing assignment, I traveled to Colombia to participate in a Spanish immersion program.

Within 36 hours of being in Bogota, I was brutally stabbed in the back twice while walking down the street, sober as a judge, minding my business, on a main road in front of one of the most famous hotels in Bogota. I was ambushed from behind. Two nefarious characters seemed like they came out of nowhere, and I suddenly heard footsteps running up behind me,and within 2 seconds my life drastically changed forever. One guy acted as the lookout, while the other had me on the ground, face down, ass up, fighting for my life. I punched the guy in the jaw as he took me to the ground, and I’m pretty sure I broke his face.

He stabbed me in the back twice while I was on the ground, with my phone underneath me. I screamed and tried to protect my vital organs. At the time, I didn’t realize that I was stabbed, due to the surge of adrenaline.

After a few minutes, which felt like a few years, the two assholes ran off. I stood up, and immediately felt the pain in my back. I reached for it and my hands were covered in blood. “I just got stabbed”. I looked down, and blood was pouring from me, pelting the ground like large raindrops. It was leaving large red stains and a trail everywhere I walked. Having the knowledge of a RN, I estimated that I had about 45 minutes or less to get to a hospital (which proved to be a very accurate estimate).

I approached the doorman of the Hotel Tequendama and begged for help in my limited Spanish. He pretended that I didn’t exist. My life apparently meant nothing. I was bleeding to death. After blocking my entry to the hotel, he told me in Spanish “go to your own hotel, get help there”. I told him “No tengo tiempo, necesito ayudar AHORA! por favor, ayudar me!

I didn’t know how to call 911.

There was no one around. Cars rushed by, but there were no pedestrians.

I was completely panicked. It felt like a nightmare, but unfortunately, it was reality.

I called my girlfriend who was in our hometown of Orlando Florida and woke her out of a sound sleep. “Denisse, I just got stabbed!! No one will help me!” She spoke to the doorman in Spanish (fortunately she is fluent) and he assured her that someone had already called the police.

I heard an ambulance. I started to feel relief. An ambulance is a basically a moving hospital, I thought for sure that I was about to be saved. They would have all of the necessary equipment to keep me alive until I got to the hospital! It was approaching too fast. My heart sank and I felt like I was going to vomit…it was dispatched for someone else, probably a stabbing down the street. Finally, some lady exited the hotel, and put her sweater around me, which acted as somewhat of a tourniquet. It couldn’t stop the bleeding, but at least it applied some pressure. The blood was still pelting the pavement.

Shortly after, “the police” arrived. They were not in a marked car. I don’t remember them being in uniform. They told me to get in the back of a hatchback. The angle that they had me sitting at allowed the wounds to pour blood. I felt it all over the seat, in my shoes, it was everywhere. It looked like cattle had been slaughtered. Meanwhile,  I was not convinced that they were taking me to the hospital. I pictured myself “disappearing”.

During all of the chaos, my girlfriend (also a nurse) was still on FaceTime, and was pleading with me “Nicholas, count with me! Stay with me! “, as she shouted out numbers, attempting to count backward from one hundred, I was getting more and more dizzy and felt extremely tired. It took me several seconds each time she would call out a number to repeat her. I was convinced that I was going to die. Everything seemed like it was going in slow motion.

When we actually pulled up to a hospital, again, I felt relief. I was saved, at least from certain death….. Not so fast: “Sir, do you have your ID and insurance card,” as I bled profusely (I was told moments later by my surgeons that I had lost 60% of my circulating blood).

Thankfully, those a**holes did not get my cell phone, or anything else for that matter, as I fought them off like the badass that I am. Had they just asked for the phone, I would have handed it over. This was a fight or flight situation; handing over my phone never even occurred to me. Fortunately, I had copies of my ID and insurance card in the notes app of my phone that they were trying to steal. How ironic that the phone that almost cost me my life also saved it. As I was taken through the very busy emergency room of Hospital Universitario San Ignacio, every single person audibly gasped at my injuries.

At this point, I felt very… strange. It would be impossible to explain how I felt. On the one hand, I realized that I was injured very badly. However, as I lost more and more blood, you could’ve convinced me that I was Mickey Mouse, and that I was in town to sign autographs for children. I remember thinking that the surgeons were exaggerating the extent of my injuries. I was planning to hike to the top of Monserrate the next morning. Surely this was a huge inconvenience, but I figured that it was only going to set me back a day or two……….

One of the many surgeons that saved my life came running down the hall toward me. I was on a stretcher surrounded by doctors now. A surgeon named Dr. Pinto told me “You need immediate surgery and will likely wake up with a colostomy, if you wake up”. There is about a 50% chance that you will survive this surgery. I don’t know what organ or artery has been cut, it appears to be your intestine. At this point I had accepted death as a probable outcome, and was too weak from the blood loss to fight, care, or realize the significance anymore. I later found out that my admitting diagnosis was hypovolemic shock.

Five blood transfusions and several other blood products later, I had successfully survived the first (of what would be many) surgeries. It was an extensive surgery involving many surgeons as my inferior vena cava as well as another main artery was cut.

I woke up confused and alone. As the anesthesia wore off, the pain set in. I remember being scared to look at my abdomen, which was covered by many heavy sheets. I still didn’t know if I had a colostomy. I don’t remember the first time I actually saw what used to be my stomach, but it looked like I was cut in half with a lightsaber.

I was moved out of recovery into a small shared room. It was hot. and I was sweating, which exacerbated the pain.  There is no air conditioning in the hospital in Bogota (with the exception of the operating room) as it is only needed two weeks a year. Again, it was July 13.

My roommate did not speak English. It was Bogota, and I was there to learn Spanish, what the hell did I expect? After all, this is what brought me to this country..to practice and become fluent. I was getting that opportunity, albeit not under the best of circumstances. We communicated in my broken Spanish and he was very helpful. I was too weak to shout for the nurse, and taking a deep breath hurt far too much. Thankfully, whenever I needed help, he would shout for me, in his loud, booming voice. “Infermera!!!”

Denisse had waited anxiously to see if I survived the first surgery before buying a plane ticket, as she did not know if she was flying to Bogota to be with me, or to bring my body home. As soon as I woke from that first surgery, she booked a flight to be with me. She was there the next day, and helped with my ADLs as well as communication with my many surgeons. I was constantly getting all of my IVs and tubes tangled. I had a NG tube due to a paralytic ileus, oxygen tubing (when I stood I would desat into the 70s), foley catheter, wound vac to my abdomen, IV in my left arm, and after a few days a PICC line in my right arm. It was a necessity as I would be kept alive by TPN. I couldn’t move two inches to reposition without help.

My back was hurting me from the bed, which combined with the excruciating abdominal pain, which was indescribable. It became one big shitty circle of pain. Prior to the insertion of the central line, my IV would often occlude. At Hospital San Ignacio, the nurses could not troubleshoot the PCA, the machine that was delivering my pain medication. ONLY an anesthesiologist could restart the PCA or administer narcotics, which meant that at times I would go 2-4 hours without pain medication.

Due to the nature of the injury my abdomen needed to be closed over the span of FIVE MORE SURGERIES, each more painful than the last. After the third surgery, a Ketamine drip was added to the Dilaudid PCA, as the pain was absolutely intolerable. The 0-10 pain scale became absolutely laughable now, absurd even. There was no numerical value that could quantify the pain that I experienced. Every breath that I took was so incredibly painful.

I was shocked by how good the medical care was in Colombia. The surgeons checked on me multiple times daily. Everyone that I met in Colombia was amazing. They were more sad to be hearing of my situation than I was to be living it. They were proud of their country, and they were genuinely more upset that I had been stabbed than I was.

I’ve been to Trenchtown Jamaica, Hwange Zimbabwe, Cape Town South Africa. I’ve been stung by a lion fish in Barbados and gone into anaphylaxis on a cruise ship. I’ve had human roadblocks form in front of my rental car in Honduras. I had put myself in many vulnerable positions over the years, and my luck ran out.

Transported To Orlando Regional Medical Center

I needed to be airlifted back to Orlando. I was informed that a physician had accepted me as a patient to perform the final surgery to close my abdomen. They had an 8-seat plane with a flight crew consisting of a pilot, physician, nurse, and EMT that was ready to pick me up. All that was needed was for a bed to open up at the facility where the surgeon had accepted me as a patient.

Ironically, the facility that I needed to contact regarding an open bed was Orlando Regional Medical Center, which is where I began my career as a registered nurse, where I had met Denisse, and where many of my friends still worked as oncology nurses.

I sent a text to my friend who is the nurse educator of the unit that I used to work on, from my hospital bed, where I was sweating, in agonizing pain. She was in a meeting, but contacted the nurse manager, who had direct access to talk to the people that I needed most; the administrators who control bed management in Orlando. I had been friends with these girls for years and was confident that they would help get me home. They did not disappoint.

Suddenly, a bed opened up in Orlando, shortly after, my nurse friends at ORMC explained to hospital administrators that a former team member with five years of service had been stabbed in Colombia, and needed to get home.

I was airlifted to Orlando, where I had my final surgery. The hospitalization and the appearance of my body were compromised by a MRSA infection. Denisse had been informing the surgeons (who were present for five minutes a day in America) that a certain spot on my abdomen was red. Her concerns were dismissed, and as a result I have a hole below what used to be my belly button.

I went twenty-three days without a bite to eat, a sip of water. I went through so much hell. It was a long, strange trip. But I’m far more grateful to be alive now than I was before I was stabbed.

I am scared of the dark now. I’m about to be fourty-six years old, and I’m afraid of the dark. Even in situations in which I realize that I probably don’t need to be, such as on New Year’s Eve, with children running around everywhere. I’m also having recurring nightmares, usually waking up thinking that my oxygen saturation is plummeting. I’m working with a therapist on these issues.

Bogota was so captivating during the day that I did not feel threatened, and I foolishly let my guard down. I had been out at night in rough places for years, and time caught up with me. I had an invincibility complex for far too long and it cost me dearly. I now have what feels like a piece of leather that runs from my sternum to my mid-pelvic region. I don’t have a “normal” anymore, with regard to how my abdomen feels. I still have a ton of pain, mostly when I move, even just to adjust my position. It hurts to touch; putting on my seatbelt sucks. Sometimes the pain is worse than others. There’s a ton of numbness and tingling from the manipulation of all those nerves. Fortunately, my mobility is not impaired.

My only regret is walking alone that night. I have no one to blame but myself. Lesson learned. I am going broke. I’m hopeful that I can find an audience for my story and make a few bucks. I really, really hope that Dr. Pinto sees this, and knows that I feel a profound connection to him, as he saved my life. I want him to know how much I appreciate him. His competent, reassuring demeanor was much appreciated, and I’ll never forget him.. And no, to my knowledge the assholes that did this to me were never caught. It did not seem to be a priority to the Colombian police.

QUOTE FROM A SURGEON THAT SAVED MY LIFE IN BOGOTA, speaking to me exactly one week after performing life-saving surgery and transfusing five units of blood into my veins:

“Nicholas, I see what I saw with you (being stabbed over a cell phone) more often than you would believe here in Bogotá. Unfortunately, the outcome is not usually survival. I am usually not able to save the person; they usually die. It happens all the time here. It is a beautiful country, but a country with many, many problems. Conditions were perfect for your survival. If the police had been two minutes later in getting you to the hospital, if it had been raining, if there had been issues with the blood bank, if the emergency room had been busier, if there were equipment issues, you would not be alive today. So many pieces had to move in just the right direction in order to bring it all together. I hope that you know how lucky you are and I hope that you believe in God because you are part of his plan. I hope you know how lucky you are to be getting another chance at life”.

❤️ THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO GOT ME THROUGH THIS, YOU ALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE, AND YOU ARE ALL AMAZING.

I have set up a GoFundMe and appreciate any donations (trigger warning: graphic images)