A teacher has revealed how she hid in a cupboard in a desperate bid to survive after her partner stabbed her 29 times.
Martina Turner was the victim of a frenzied attack from Steven Wood, during which he taunted that he would “finish her off”.
The pair met online in 2019 and their relationship developed, with Martina inviting Wood to live with her when Covid restrictions were introduced.
In May 2021 Wood turned on the college lecturer, who is known as Tina.
Chronicle Live reports that, with a large kitchen knife still embedded in her chest, Tina was able to hide in a cupboard until help arrived as Wood locked her in the house leaving her for dead.
On Friday, as he was jailed for life for attempted murder, Tina has told her incredible story of survival.
Tina said: "He said he had to finish me off'. That is a sentence I will never forget. I never ever thought a person could be capable of doing that.
"I have no feelings towards that man now. My brain has switched it off. I just feel empty. There's no hate and no pity, I just want to know why.”
When Covid travel restrictions placed doubt on an overseas trip the pair had planned, Wood became agitated.
On May 21 Tina and Wood watched the news together in the kitchen while they ate, hoping for some certainty about their holiday.
But Tina could sense something was very wrong with her partner and decided it would be best to leave him alone for a while.
"Somehow I could feel unease," she said. "So I said 'I'm just going out for a while."
But then Wood flipped, armed himself with a kitchen knife and stabbed Tina from behind.
"I can remember him shouting from behind me; 'you go nowhere'," she said. "Then he got the knife out. I didn't register what had happened, until I saw the blood running down my T-shirt on the front.”
As mum-of-three Tina desperately tried to defend herself, she attempted to reason with Wood, asking him to talk to her and telling him to think of his family.
"He said; 'I need to finish you off because I'm not going to prison for you,'" she said. "I begged for my life. At that point I thought, I needed to be really smart.
"I suggested he phone his son, because his son is everything to him. He grabbed his phone and stabbed me with the Jamie Oliver knife in the chest.”
Tina tried to escape Wood's attack by hiding in a cupboard, but as she did so she fell backwards, breaking two ribs.
“He held on to me with the knife while he spoke to his son on the phone," Tina continued. "He broke down, cried and said; 'I have done something really bad.'”
Meanwhile Tina tried to whisper down the phone asking Wood's son to call an ambulance and telling him she had been stabbed.
Then Wood let go of the knife and left the house, locking both the back and front doors as he went.
"My hands were very, very slippery from all the blood but I managed to get my phone out, put it on the electricity meter box, and dial 999," said Tina.
"A really lovely woman stayed with me on the phone until the paramedics came. At that point I hadn't realised he had locked me in."
Paramedics from the North East Ambulance Service and a helicopter from the Great North Air Ambulance Service were sent to the scene.
When Tina arrived at hospital medics discovered she had been stabbed 29 times and had wounds over her entire body, including her heart, spine, and legs.
