MEDICS performed open heart surgery on the roadside to save a victim savagely stabbed in the chest during a robbery - the first person in the region to ever survive such a procedure, a court was told on Thursday.

Although the 38-year-old victim lived, he suffering brain damage through lack of oxygen resulting in a permanent personality change and will probably never be able live independently again.

Kieran Smith, 23, of Tenth Street, Horden, near Peterlee, pleaded guilty at a previous hearing at Newcastle Crown Court to unlawful wounding and robbery following the random attack, near a pizza shop in Horden on August 9 last year.

Sentencing Smith to 12 years in jail with an extra five-year extended licence, Judge Edward Bindloss said: “Although the victim was described as a heroin user before the incident he was easy going, polite, kind and respectful and hard working.

“Since this incident it is quite clear his personality has changed. He is now cantankerous, lacking in restraint, disinhibited and disruptive and has no short-term memory.

“The consequence of your stabbing has led to life-changing injuries.”

Mark Giuliani, prosecuting, said the victim, who had no memory of the attack, called the emergency services before collapsing in the street.

He said: “The victim went into cardiac arrest and roadside emergency cardiac assistance was given by means of opening the chest cavity.

“He was taken to James Cook Hospital. He is the first and to date the only person in the North-East to have survived following emergency roadside heart surgery.”

Shortly before the attack, Kieran told friends: “I’m going to tax a smackhead me. I’’m going in the back street”. He returned later with a bottle of vodka and coke boasting he had stabbed someone and stolen £45 from him.

Nicholas Lumley, mitigating said: “The circumstances of Kieran Smith’s violence that day could not have been predicted by any of us.

“Of course he accepts responsibility for the consequences of his ill thought out actions that day.”

He added “It was a single blow with a knife.

“This was a random, utterly unforgivable, attack. “A single blow took the money and the consequences have been terrible. It was not planned in any meaningful way.”

The court was told Smith had served a previous prison sentence for robbing an autistic man and was still on licence for the offence and in breach of a suspended sentence for possession of a bladed article.

Speaking after the hearing Detective superintendent Victoria Fuller, of Durham Constabulary, said: “This was an utterly savage attack which left the victim with life-changing injuries.

“On behalf of Durham Constabulary, I would like to thank those emergency responders who saved the victim’s life by carrying out open heart surgery in the street and the people of Horden for their unwavering support throughout our investigation to bring Smith to justice.

“Above all, I would like to express my sympathy to the victim and his family.

“Kieran Smith is a dangerous man and this lengthy prison sentence will give him time to reflect on his crime while protecting the wider public, but that will be of little consolation to the victim, who will have to endure the consequences for the rest of his life”.