Pablo Mari: Arsenal defender being treated in hospital after being stabbed in Italian shopping mall
The 29-year-old Arsenal loanee was stabbed and was immediately taken to hospital.
Pablo Mari is awake in the hospital and had surgery on Friday to decrease muscular damage caused by a back wound; Monza CEO Adriano Galliani told Sky Italy that Mari, who is 6ft 4ins tall, was “saved” due to his height, and that Mari had his son in the shopping trolley.
Mari was one of six persons attacked at an Italian retail mall. The 29-year-old, who is now on a season-long loan at Monza, is presently healing, with local reports stating that one of the six victims, a grocery employee, has died.
Pablo Mari underwent a surgery after knife attack
On Friday, the trauma team at Milan’s Niguarda hospital announced that it had performed surgery to rebuild two torn muscles in Mari’s back.
“After the difficult time we had yesterday, my family and I would like to say that thankfully we are doing well and we would like to thank everyone for the kind messages of support that we have received,” Mari wrote on social media with a picture of himself in a hospital bed.
Mari will not return to training for at least two months, according to Monza chief executive Adriano Galliani, and the club has requested that Monday’s match against Bologna be postponed since “the team is in shock.”
“Everyone in the team cried last night, they all wanted to visit him but we couldn’t,” Galliani told reporters outside the hospital.
Italy shopping mall knife incident
Mari was one of several persons attacked in a Carrefour supermarket in Assago, on the outskirts of Milan in northern Italy, by a man who appeared to be mentally ill and killed one man after grabbing a knife from a shelf.
Monza said in a tweet they were “united in grief” with the family of the supermarket’s employee whose life was taken.
Four other people were hurt by a 46-year-old Italian who was arrested by police, reportedly after being disarmed by former Napoli and Inter Milan defender Massimo Taranto.
“We are thinking of the family and friends of the victim to whom we send our deepest condolences,” added Mari.
