Keep calm and carry on may be an apt motto for these crazy times.
Certainly, it seems to have been a code of behavior for a New York City man who appeared remarkably cool and collected despite having been stabbed in the head and having a massive butcher’s knife still lodged there.
Roberto Perez, a native of the Bronx, seemed almost unaffected by the blade, which left him covered in blood, according to a widely shared Instagram video of the gory aftermath.
“He got stabbed in the head yo, this is crazy!” one person is heard saying.
The clip shows 36-year-old Perez talking calmly with horrified onlookers and strolling toward an FDNY ambulance as if he were an extra on the set of a horror movie.
He appears not to be aware of his blood-drenched undershirt and the protruding knife.
“He looked like he didn’t even feel it,” said one witness.
“The guy was refusing to go inside the ambulance,” continued the witness, declining to be identified by name.
A security guard at a nearby Duane Reade who witnessed the attack said, “I’m traumatized from seeing that. It looks like a scene out of a freaking movie.”
The terrifying incident unfolded around noon on Tuesday at East 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in East Harlem, according to authorities.
Despite the horrific appearance of the wound, NYPD sources said the victim escaped serious harm because the blade didn’t penetrate his skull.
Perez was listed in stable condition at Harlem Hospital.
Multiple witnesses characterized the events preceding the stabbing as an apparent domestic squabble.
They said Perez allegedly roughed up a female companion, who responded by plunging the knife into his head.
The NYPD, however, said the victim and a 34-year-old woman were on the same side of a dispute against another man.
That man allegedly slashed the unidentified woman across the cheek before lodging the knife in Perez’s head and fleeing.
A doctor at the hospital said Perez was treated in the intensive care unit, and his female companion was also checked out.
“They both appeared to be on drugs,” the physician said.
No arrests or charges have been made so far.