A man was stabbed at a Planet Fitness gym in Gardner, Massachusetts, on Wednesday morning, and another man was arrested miles away after being pulled over on a highway, police said.
Officers were called to an assault and battery at the gym on Victoria Lane at around 10:36 a.m., Gardner police said. When officers arrived, they found a 43-year-old man with a stab wound in the chest.
He was flown to UMass hospital, where he was in serious condition, according to police.
Investigators identified a car that left the scene and spotted it passing Route 2 in Fitchburg, state police said.
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Troopers stopped the vehicle in Leominster and arrested the suspect, according to authorities. They said an edged weapon was found inside the vehicle.
Lennox Nunez, of Revere, was arrested and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He was arraigned in Gardner District Court later Wednesday and held on $50,000 bail ahead of a court appearance Aug. 9.
His grandmother said he suffers from a mental health condition and that she recently tried to get him help.
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"I have him in my heart and my heart hurts and, you know, I’m praying for him because, unfortunately, he’s also a victim," she said.
A person who works at the gym said the man who was stabbed is a regular customer who was attacked apparently at random in the locker room. He had so much adrenaline pumping when he came out of the locker room yelling about being attacked that he hadn't realized he was stabbed.
"His shirt was getting soaked with blood and he had a little bit of blood on his fingers, so I was like, 'Can you lift up your shirt?' So he lifted up his shirt — his entire chest and his stomach had blood all over it and blood was running down from his chest to his stomach," the employee said.
