MEDWAY, Maine — Daniel Deschaine might not be alive today had not a Millinocket man put a tourniquet on his left leg after he was stabbed in the parking lot of a Millinocket bar last week.

“If I didn’t get help, I probably would have bled out right there,” the 26-year-old local man said Thursday. “The tourniquet he put on my leg because it was bleeding very, very profusely. He was somebody in the bar there after closing time. I was told by somebody that he was an EMT. So I am lucky.”

Deschaine knows the name of the man and others at the Highland Tavern on Central Street who helped him, but declined to identify them. His account of the Dec. 21 incident comes across sketchily, with a mix of details from the few blurry, terrifying seconds in which it occurred and from his reluctance to say anything that might compromise the police investigation.

That investigation, Millinocket Police Chief Donald Bolduc said, likely will end with charges being filed. Sgt. Aaron Brooker, the lead investigator, “is making good progress,” Bolduc said.

Brooker could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Deschaine was jumped about 1:25 a.m. by two or three people, after the bar closed. When the attack ended, he pounded on the tavern’s door and workers there cleaning up let him in, he said. He believes he knows who did it and why it occurred, but isn’t sure.

“Everybody has a little scuffle or two growing up but it was nothing I was anticipating or looking for. I am not a violent person,” Deschaine said.

Deschaine was released from Millinocket Regional Hospital on Dec. 23. He spent several bed-ridden days at home before regaining enough strength to move around with a single crutch.

“When I was at the hospital, I couldn’t put pressure on my left leg at all. I definitely needed two crutches,” he said. “Now I can put pressure on it. I am still in pain, especially in the mornings, usually after I sleep for a few hours, but increasingly, every day, I am getting better.”

A welder who works for a local boiler company, Deschaine hopes to be back at work by Jan. 18.

“That’s my goal. I hope I can move around enough to make it,” he said.