WILL TO SURVIVE
Stab vic’s determined rebound
STABBED NINE TIMES after a brawl over a basketball game in Brooklyn, the first words out of Romario Slayman’s mouth after he emerged from an eight-day coma were, “Who won the fight?”
His mom, Alisa, thought she knew the answer: “Not you.”
The 19-year-old soon explained he was asking about the outcome of the highly anticipated boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor, not realizing that by then it was more than a week since the fight had taken place.
“Don’t worry, I’m alive,” Slayman told his 46-year-old mom on Saturday.
She’d come from Massachusetts to be by his bedside at Brookdale University Hospital in Brooklyn.
Her son’s survival was a miracle.
The teen required more than 30 staples and stitches to close his wounds. One lung collapsed, and he had a piece of the other one removed.
“I don’t want to die. I’m not ready yet,” he recalled dreaming in an ambulance after the fight at a Cypress Hills basketball court at Ridgewood Ave. and Ashford St.
“They were trying to run. They caught my son,” Alisa said. “He lost all of his blood.”
The Aug. 26 fight, she was told, began after her son’s team won the game and he playfully bragged to his opponents. Someone punched Slayman. He and his friends were quickly outnumbered.
“Twenty-five guys came from out of nowhere,” Alisa said.
Slayman and his friends tried to flee, running on the tops of parked cars.
A block from the basketball court, Slayman tripped and the pursuing group grabbed him, cutting him and beating him with bats and rocks, his mother said. Slayman recalled people filming him as he bled on the street.
“He’s not gonna start trouble, but he’s not going to take trouble either,” Alisa said.
Now, her athletic son, who is 6-foot-4 and weighs 250 pounds, faces a long recovery.
“Sports is his passion,” she said. “Now, he will never be able to play.”
Cops were investigating the crime as a gang assault and had not made any arrests as of late Monday. A police spokesman said two knives were recovered from the scene.
Slayman, of Stoughton, Mass., was less than 24 hours into his trip to Brooklyn to record a rap song.
“I didn’t want him to go,” his mom said. “He kept texting me to reassure me.”
Her son had run-ins with the law back home — including for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and disorderly conduct, according to a Patch neighborhood news site — but never anything close to this, Alisa said.
“Anyone who meets him, likes him. He’s a genuinely nice guy,” she said. “Even the police in our town like him. He’s always respectful and has always kept a job.”
She credited the NYPD for keeping her informed about the investigation and helping her get a hotel room after nights sleeping at the hospital and in her car. Police told her they’ve identified several suspects and were close to making arrests.
One detective even took her to church for Sunday service.
“I really needed that. It helped me a lot,” she said.
Slayman — who had welts from being struck in the head — will have lots of scars. He plans to cover them up with ink.
“He’s gonna get a lot of tattoos,” Alisa said.
“This has just been the worst experience of my life.”