Daniel Harris, age 43, told CBS Boston that he was washing his hands when a man he didn't know stabbed him in the chest and lower back with a box cutter. Harris first thought he'd been punched and didn't realize he'd been slashed until he walked to the customer service desk a few minutes later.
"I never said anything to the guy; he never said anything to me, just jumped me and ran off," Harris told the reporter. "They asked me to lift up my shirt and there was blood everywhere and there were stab wounds."
Nunez Lennox, 28, of Revere, was arrested in Leominster shortly after the attack. Police said he ran out of the gym's bathroom immediately after the stabbing and sped away in his car.
He didn't make it far, as a state trooper spotted his Honda Civic minutes after he left the Victoria Street gym and pulled him over.
Prosecutors charged Lennox with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He was being held on $50,000 bail, authorities said.
Paramedics airlifted Harris to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, where doctors treated his stab wounds. He's expected to make a full recovery, but Harris said he's still shaken by the ordeal.
"It's just shocking," Harris told CBS Boston. "I never thought anything like that would happen at Planet Fitness. I really didn't. That's the last place I would ever expect to get attacked."
A spokesperson for Planet Fitness said the gym chain is working with police and would evaluate the company security protocols following the incident.
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