Man With Knife in His Back Walks Out of Russian Hospital to Smoke: Reports

Warning: Graphic photos

A stock photo of an ambulance (Toby Melville/Reuters)

A shirtless man with a knife in his back walked out of a Russian hospital’s emergency room to smoke a cigarette.

The patient, identified in reports only as 43-year-old Vladimir, was bleeding from the knife wound and was told to return inside, reported the Daily Mail.

“You are about to die,” he was told by hospital staff.

Vladimir then walked back into the hospital in Kazan.

A nurse filmed the man in his underwear with the knife in his back going for a smoke.

According to the Mail, he was injured in a drunken brawl, but details about the incident are not clear.

Paramedics managed to dress his wound and didn’t take out the knife.

When he was being undressed, he told hospital staff he had “something to do” and began walking outside with the knife.

“Vladimir, are you mad?” a nurse asked him.

The man then walks through the hospital and stops due to pain.

“How far are you going?” she then asks him. “It is winter outside. Come back.”

The footage shows snow on the ground as the temperature reached below freezing.

Vladimir then replies he was going out “for a smoke.”

The nurse then tells him that he doesn’t have any cigarettes, calling his actions foolish.

“Young man, you are going to die now,” said a male doctor. “Let’s go, have an injection and you go home,” a medic also told him.

Vladimir, according to the report, wanted to get a cigarette from another smoker but was not successful.

The knife victim then goes inside, and the nurse tells him, “Yes, we'll make one injection and let you go home.”

She added, “Come on, come with me. Go, go. Keep going. Go and lie down.”

A regional health agency said he was admitted into Zelenodolsk District Hospital in Tartarstan.

He underwent surgery to remove the knife and was in “stable” condition, a representative said.

According to state news outlet RT, Vladimir’s girlfriend is being investigated as a potential suspect in the attack.

Other details about the incident are not clear.

A video of the incident can be seen here (Warning: Very graphic; viewer discretion is advised).

Smoking: Still a Huge Cause of Cancer

Despite headway made over the years to curb smoking in the United States, cigarettes are still a leading cause of cancer.

A young man smokes an electronic cigarette in this picture illustration taken on Sept. 14, 2018. (Mike Blake/Illustration/Reuters)

An American Cancer Society study found “that despite significant drops in smoking rates, cigarettes continue to cause about three in ten cancer deaths in the United States. The study, appearing in the Annals of Epidemiology, concludes that efforts to reduce smoking prevalence as rapidly as possible should be a top priority for the U.S. public health efforts to prevent cancer deaths.”

“Our results indicate that cigarette smoking causes about three in 10 cancer deaths in the contemporary United States. Reducing smoking prevalence as rapidly as possible should be a top priority for US public health efforts to prevent future cancer deaths,” the authors said.