A MAN spoke yesterday of his miracle recovery after a drunken attack left him with a knife buried two inches into his head.

David Siddle initially thought he had been punched by Scott Thompson during the attack outside a nightclub in Victoria Road, Consett, County Durham.

But to his horror, his friends pointed to the flick knife which was lodged in the side of his temple - dangerously close to his right eye.

Surgeons removed the knife during a five-hour operation at Newcastle General Hospital, and Mr Liddle, 20, was released with 24 stitches to his head.

Speaking from his home in Consett yesterday, Mr Liddle said: "I came out of the club and was walking past a group of men who were fighting on the street.

"I felt a thud to the side of my head. The fight had nothing to do with me but I thought I had been punched from behind.

"I chased the man who did it down the street. Then when I came back my friends were looking shocked.

"One of them said: 'David, you've got a knife sticking out of your head'.

"I looked and could see the very edge of the knife sticking out of the side. It was a hell of shock.

"If it had been 5mm one way I would have been blinded and if it had been 5mm the other way I would have been dead."

Newcastle Crown Court heard on Friday that Mr Liddle had been afraid to go out since the attack.

Thompson was originally charged with attempted murder but entered a guilty plea to a charge of wounding with intent on the day of his trial in September.

Stephen Rich, mitigating, said the 18-year-old feared an attack by a group of David's friends who were already fighting when he arrived at the scene.

He said Thompson had taken his friend's knife when he feared reprisals from the ongoing fight.

Jailing Thompson, of Lumley Drive, Delves Lane, Consett, for two years, Judge David Hodson said: "It is a miracle that there were no more serious injuries."

Thompson, who admitted wounding with intent, was sent to a young offenders' institution.

Mr Siddle, who has lost his job as a hod carrier since the attack, hit out at the sentence.

He said: "It is an absolute disgrace. I nearly died and he only gets two years."