The registered nurse walked out of the hospital room, sick to her stomach at what she had just seen. She had worked in the Bronx, witnessed gunshot wounds and worse. But now, in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, she had to turn away.

She leaned against the wall and wilted to the floor. Inside the room, Giovanni DeLoatch lay in a hospital bed, his head and arm bandaged from five stab wounds he had suffered earlier in the night. The nurse worried for him because he was a young man – only 20 – and a defensive end on the Syracuse football team. Because he was bleeding profusely from his head and arm. And because he was her only son.

On Oct. 31, 1999, four men were stabbed outside Sadie’s Place, a bar on Syracuse’s west side. Three were football players, milling outside only hours after their one-point loss to Boston College. Police came to the bar at 1:19 a.m. on Sunday. They saw a melee of 60 to 75 people and a few large puddles of blood.

On Sept. 26, 2004, Syracuse cornerback Tanard Jackson was stabbed in the chest outside of Schine Student Center. He was released from the hospital Monday, police said. His injuries were considered ‘non-life threatening,’ and even though he won’t play on Saturday against Rutgers, there are people around him that are thankful it wasn’t worse – that it wasn’t like 1999, when the fight left five people injured and put two in comas.

That night, DeLoatch was the first player attacked. He was quickly pulled away from the fight by a bouncer, who dragged him to safety. It was a move that definitely expedited his release from the hospital the next day. Duke Pettijohn, a defensive end, was released that Sunday. David Byrd, a cornerback, lay in a coma for nearly two weeks.

‘I looked back,’ DeLoatch said, ‘and it seemed like a whole sea of people were stomping five or six guys. We were severely outnumbered. There was no way we could fight back.’

His mother, Claud’Evelyn, remembers receiving a phone call from DeLoatch soon after the incident. Because it was Homecoming weekend, the whole family – his father, mother and two sisters – was at his apartment.

Claud’Evelyn answered the phone. ‘Mommy, they stabbed me,’ DeLoatch said. ‘I’m at Sadie’s, they stabbed me. I’m bleeding. My head. They stabbed me.’

Frantic, Claud’Evelyn hopped in the car, not sure if her only son was going to die that night. DeLoatch, riding in an ambulance en route to St. Joseph’s, thought the same about his teammates.

Finally, Claud’Evelyn found him.

‘When I looked at him, I thought, ‘Someone really tried to kill my child.”

The Byrd family, which had spent that day watching its son play in Syracuse, had already made it back to Schenectady. Then the phone rang.

‘To get that call at 4 o’clock in the morning,’ said David Sr., ‘it’s pretty tough.’

The Byrds drove two hours back to Syracuse. When they arrived at Crouse Hospital, Byrd was in serious condition. He had stab wounds to his neck, back and leg. One just missed his heart.

DeLoatch said he hardly felt pain after the attack. In fact, much like Jackson, he didn’t even know he was stabbed. He only felt a tingly sensation, like ‘pins and needles.’

‘Once the adrenaline started going,’ DeLoatch said, ‘I didn’t even feel the puncture. The whole thing was going so fast. Before you know it, it’s over. I didn’t know I got stabbed until I got pulled back into the bar. I looked at my arm and there was blood everywhere.’

His main concern was Byrd, whom his mother reported was failing.

DeLoatch prayed. So did Claud’Evelyn and an entire Syracuse community. It took months for the physical wounds to heal. The emotional wounds took much longer. Claud’Evelyn could barely sleep at night, and when she did, she’d see nightmares.

‘I was really sick,’ Claud’Evelyn said. ‘It was a long time before I could get over it. That’s my only boy. I’m over it now. It was just so close, the fact that it could reach my family, our faces were just down. We had to pray real hard and keep ourselves encouraged. It wasn’t just for Giovanni. It was for the other young men, too.’

After a while, the men recovered. One by one, they were released from the hospital, but not from the terrible memories. David Byrd Sr. doesn’t like to talk about that early Halloween morning. Neither Byrd nor Pettijohn could be reached for comment.

DeLoatch said the incident has made him stronger and wiser. He knows how to avoid trouble, he said. ‘It makes you grow up,’ he said. ‘God blessed me. He told me, ‘You have to grow up. You can’t do this anymore.’ It’s a life lesson.

‘It’s sad to hear that someone had to go through what I went through. It’s something you don’t expect. But when it happened, I had to deal with the situation. It’s never OK to get stabbed. But anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’m still here, I’m still breathing.’

And so is Jackson. And for that, he, too, should feel blessed.