Comedian says man who attacked him with bat thinks he’s Jesus
Jan 7, 2015, 2:42 PM | Updated: 4:57 pm
Seattle-area comedian Dylan Avila after he was assaulted by an audience member at a Renton open-mic night (Photo courtesy Dylan Avila)
(Photo courtesy Dylan Avila)
A Seattle-area comedian considers himself lucky to be alive after a man attacked him on stage with an aluminum baseball bat.
Comic Dylan Avila tells KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that he was introducing an act at the Monday open mic night he hosts weekly at Local 907 in Renton when a man they believe snuck in a back door struck him.
“He waited for me and attacked me with a baseball bat, just blindsided me,” says Avila from his hospital bed.
“The first hit he got me in my left ear and jaw, and then he got me in the back of the head, which cracked my skull in two places.”
The man could have done even more damage, but Avila says the people at the event acted quickly to stop the attack.
“The two hits was all he could get on me before all my friends rushed, half the room rushed to take care of me, and the other half of the room rushed to take care of him. They took care of him pretty good.”
Avila says the man who struck him was banned from the show the week prior for a performance involving Jesus and a sex toy.
“He had just gotten kicked out of the Comedy Underground in Seattle and he came down to my room and came up as Jesus Christ. He actually thinks he’s Jesus Christ. But he also wanted to include a big rubber sex toy on stage. It was just really bad.”
The man hadn’t even attempted to include any jokes in the act, Avila says. “He was talking as if he had come back as Jesus in 2004 and he was telling stories about when he was walking with Judas, these types of things, just a clear psychopath.”
The Seattle Times reports the 48-year-old man was arrested and booked into the King County Jail for investigation of assault following the attack.
Avila remains hospitalized and now has titanium plates in his head as a result of his injuries. He hasn’t left his hospital bed since the attack, but if he is able to stand and walk in tests Wednesday evening, he says he may be released Thursday.
The father of three got emotional when speaking about the young children he’s returning home to.
“They haven’t seen me yet,” he says. “It’s kind of hard for me to talk about my kids right now.”
While his injuries are significant, he knows things could have been a lot worse.
“I’m lucky to be alive and I’m lucky to have the friends and family that I have around me.”
Avila says the comedy world is one of the tightest workforces in the world, and he’s been getting messages and donations to his gofundme page from comedians all over. But he’s also not short on gratitude for the comics that were by his side Monday.
“The people here at home especially, I mean those guys saved my life,” he says.
