A UK man knifed 38 times and left for dead survived because he was overweight.

Danny Ross, 44, woke up in a hospital needing 70 stitches hours after he was strangled with a belt and stabbed dozens of times in his apartment in Exeter, Devon by a crazed David Johnson. Johnson, 33, had showed up at the 224-pound computer analyst's house to accuse him of stealing money from a family member.

Ross had been watching TV at the time when Johnson then launched a frenzied attack by first using his belt to throttle Ross until he passed out and then stabbing Ross 38 times with a kitchen knife. "He started to get violent. He got out a belt and put it round my throat. In seconds I was unconscious," Ross had told the jury, according to Daily Mail.

Ross said he next remembers trying to stand up, falling, and then screaming in pain and leaving bloody handprints on the walls of his apartment. Later, he was rushed to the hospital for treatment after a man who was at his apartment with him at the time dialed the police.

He said he woke up in the hospital several hours later and was told about the extent of his injuries. "After I saw the photographs the police took I couldn't believe it. If I had been thinner I would have been dead," he said, according to The Sun. "The medical staff tried to be tactful in the way they described it but I am heavier than I would like to be and they said it was that extra weight that saved my life," he added.

Apparently Johnson had later told a friend after the attack: "I killed him, get over it." Johnson had claimed that Ross had injured himself as part of a compensation claim scam. Despite being badly injured, Ross said that he hoped his attacker, who he knew but did not get along with, "gets the treatment he needs."

"You must be so full of hate to stab someone 38 times. He thought he had killed me and definitely meant to," Ross said.

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