Gwynneville glassing victim David Merxhushi recalls night of attack

After losing litres of blood in an unprovoked glassing attack on a Gwynneville sidewalk 19 months ago, 22-year-old Mr Merxhushi is a different man. 

“I would say I have trust issues now,” Mr Merxhushi told the Mercury. 

“I thought everyone was friendly. I thought everyone was out to have a good, fun night. 

‘’Now you can’t really go out and enjoy yourself because you can’t really trust people and trust their state of mind. I haven’t gone out in a long time. It’s only on special occasions. Because of this.” 

Mr Merxhushi required 17 stitches to wounds on his neck, ear and lip after he was hit multiple times with a broken beer bottle the night of June 24, 2015.  He has lost some sensation in his neck and in his ear, which he couldn’t feel at all for many months after the attack. 

He suffers ongoing anxiety and flashbacks, mostly replaying the attack at night, before he goes to bed. He lies there, wondering how things might have turned out differently if he’d been running a couple of minutes later - if he and his attacker had never crossed paths. 

“[The flashbacks] are just random,” he said. “It’s not every night. Sometimes you get it, you wake up – it’s like a nightmare.

‘’You’re always thinking back to that night … If I’d stayed at Beaton Park, let’s say, for another three minutes. They wouldn’t have been there; we wouldn’t have been there.” 

On Friday 20-year-old Oskar Calvi was found guilty of wounding Mr Merxhushi with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.  

Calvi admitted the stabbing, but fought prosecution claims he had intended Mr Merxhushi serious harm, saying he was too drunk on the night to have formed an intention.

Prosecutors played CCTV footage from Wisemans Bowling Club and Wollongong Tennis Club – where Calvi took a coffee as well as alcohol - in a bid to show he was not as drunk as he claimed.

Calvi and and Mr Merxhushi crossed paths about 9.30pm, each accompanied by a friend. Calvi initially defused an altercation between the respective friends, only to reinvent himself as chief aggressor moments later. 

Mr Merxhushi hopes others will sit up and notice, as he has, how suddenly the night shifted, and how dramatically lives were changed. 

“I’m hoping people just realise it’s not a game, and that you have to take responsibility when you’re out there, not only for your own actions, but for the actions of those around you. If your friend’s drunk and he can’t control his alcohol, just take him home.”