‘Blessed that I’ve got another day to live': Dolphins rookie Johnson survived stabbing

MIAMI GARDENS — The conversation lasts less than five minutes, but in it, you can’t help but notice how often linebacker Deandre Johnson uses the word “blessed.”

Blessed at a shot at making the Dolphins’ roster?

Yes.

But it's far more than that.

Johnson considers himself blessed to be alive.

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It was a normal Tuesday morning at Miami’s Killian High in 2015 until it wasn’t normal at all. Johnson was talking with friends in the cafeteria when he instinctively pivoted in time to see a girl he hardly knew approaching. She had brought several knives to school, including a kitchen knife she was about to use to stab him.

Johnson managed to stumble outside where he lost consciousness. An ambulance took him to the hospital where surgeons made a significant incision along his abdomen to repair a cut artery and collapsed lung, a family lawyer told The Miami Herald at the time.

“I was blessed, man,” Johnson said Saturday. “I was minutes away from losing my life, so I’m thankful. I’m thankful for the doctors. I’m thankful for everything that lined up. Every day I wake up, it’s another opportunity.”

The stabbing triggered a lockdown on the campus. The girl, a 17-year-old senior whose name wasn’t released, was charged with attempted murder and possession of a weapon on school grounds.

An account of the attack on the Tennessee athletic website in 2020 said Johnson was stabbed three times in the chest by a student suffering from emotional and mental trauma. He was taken to Miami Children’s Hospital where surgeons drained a lung filled with blood.

Johnson’s friends used the hashtag #PrayForDre on Twitter, although his coach, Cory Johnson, told The Herald the day of the stabbing that he expected his player to pull through.

"I remember my parents telling me that the first thing I was asking was, 'Am I going to be able to continue playing football?’ ” Johnson said for the UT story. "I feel like there was a purpose behind it and I think if it would've happened to anybody else at the school, they may have died."

Johnson credits his support system with helping him recover relatively quickly — fast enough that high school football expert Larry Blustein called him a “surprising” prospect who had transferred to Miami-Southridge, where he won a state championship in 2016.

From there, it was off to Tennessee, where he appeared in 41 games, starting nine, and finishing with 58 tackles, 15.5 tackles for loss and 10 sacks in four years.

Johnson took advantage of a chance to play a fifth season in his hometown, leading the Hurricanes with eight tackles for loss in addition to 4.5 sacks in 2021.

Johnson wasn’t drafted but believes a strong April workout for Dolphins scouts afforded him the chance now before him.

“Being a young kid, you always seen the Hurricanes and the Miami Dolphins growing up, playing,” he said. “So to be in these colors, to be in the locker room, growing up right down the street, it’s an opportunity and I’m blessed for it.”

Johnson helped the Hurricanes fill a role vacated by Jaelan Phillips, but that’s where the similarities end. Phillips was a first-round pick. Johnson faces stiff odds.

“I feel like my skill set could fit any scheme,” he said. “The linebackers here are interchangeable, being able to cover and run. So I’m showing my versatility.”

Johnson thinks he also has shown coaches “that I could just pick up things on the fly — everything they’ve thrown at me.”

Now 6-feet-3 and 252 pounds, Johnson said his fitness had a role in surviving what he calls “a life-changing event.”

“Every day is an opportunity to make the most of it, get a bit better,” Johnson said. “You could change somebody’s life. I just come out here every day blessed that I’ve got another day to live.”

Hal Habib covers the Dolphins for The Post. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Dolphins rookie LB Deandre Johnson survived being stabbed in 2015