TARRANT COUNTY -- One man was stabbed with a golf club shaft and was "close to death" after a brawl last month at a golf course at Eagle Mountain Lake.
Clay Carpenter, 48, of Springtown said he is recovering from a punctured femoral artery and massive blood loss. He said the brawl broke out when his group of three tried to play through the group in front of them."People get in arguments every day on every golf course in America," Carpenter said. "But 99.9 percent of the time no one takes it this far."Carpenter, who was released from Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth on Sunday, said he might need more surgeries and is concerned that he could lose his leg. The muscles in the lower half of his leg atrophied during his recovery and portions have died from the lack of blood flow, he said."If it does not regenerate, it will be no good to me," Carpenter said.The Tarrant County Sheriff's Department is investigating, spokesman Terry Grisham said Monday.During an 11-minute call to 911, a man who identified himself as a member of the group playing in front of Carpenter told the dispatcher that he didn't know what happened."He fell on a golf club or something," the caller said. "He's passed out once already. We've got his artery clamped with our hand. We don't know this guy. They were golfers behind us. He's not in our group."Another man took the phone and begged for a helicopter ambulance."You understand, he has an artery?" he said. "He's about to die. It was spurting. He was standing up, and we saw this blood coming out of his groin area. It was like a leaky faucet, it was so bad."Grisham said Carpenter was "very close to death."The brawl broke out about 3:30 p.m. Jan. 27 at the Golf Club at the Resort on Eagle Mountain Lake.Grisham said that a foursome was playing on hole No. 13 and that the three golfers behind them, believing that the four were playing too slow, wanted to play through.Carpenter said a course marshal instructed the four to allow the three to play through, and that's when the "gentleman's game" turned ugly.As the golfers were fighting, Carpenter said, he was on top of another man when he was stabbed with the golf club shaft.Carpenter said the man who stabbed him "was not willing to defuse anything, nor was he willing to accept 'please just let us go on.'"Carpenter said he believes that the golfer who stabbed him first swung the golf club at his head, but he grabbed it and broke it off at the end.Grisham said both groups acknowledge that they were fighting.He would not say whether alcohol was involved. Carpenter said the men in his group were not drinking but did not know about the others.Carpenter said he does not know the name of the man who stabbed him."I'll never be able to lift my feet up again," he said. "I've run full marathons, and I'll never be a runner again. I've lost the ability to properly use my leg. I'll have to use a brace on this right leg forever."Officials at the course did not respond to repeated requests for comment.Mitch Mitchell, 817-390-7752Twitter: @stcrimeAudio: Excerpt from golf course 911 call
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