Halloween is James Yochim’s favorite time of year: “I get really excited about going to haunted houses.”
His Friday night at Nashville Nightmare in Madison—a sprawling attraction with four haunted houses, an escape room, and scary cast members running around with fake weapons—might dull the thrill, however.
Yochim says a thin man with skull makeup, assumed to be an actor, approached his friend, Tawnya Greenfield, asking if Yochim was “f—ing around with her,” per BuzzFeed. When she jokingly said yes, the man handed her a knife and said “stab him,”
Yochim tells the Nashville Tennessean. “Keep in mind, we’d been chased by chainsaws, holding other weapons, all kinds of stuff all night, and it was all fake,” he adds. “So she stabs at me with it, and everything got really black.”
The blade—very much real—went through the 29-year-old’s forearm.
Though it didn’t hit any major arteries, bones, or tendons, “his arm was gushing blood like something out of a horror scene,” Greenfield tells Fox 17.
Nine stitches later, Yochim recalls the unknown man apologizing as he lay bleeding, saying, “I didn’t know my knife was that sharp.” But according to Yochim, there were no weapons allowed inside the attraction and visitors were required to go through “very thorough” metal detectors.
In a Tuesday statement, Nashville Nightmare’s organizers said an employee believed to be “involved in some way” had been placed on leave “until we can determine his involvement.” An initial police report said the suspect had not been identified. No charges have been laid.
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