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STABBE The x-ray of a 30-centimetre kitchen knife embedded into 19-year-old Alex's face shows how lucky the Sydney man is to be alive.

Alex is convinced he's blessed. His hospital trauma doctor certainly agrees.

The image of a 30-centimetre kitchen knife embedded in his face is too shocking to show here, but his hospital X-ray reveals how lucky he is to be alive.

On March 20, Alex, 19, and a group of friends gathered in Pyrmont for his brother's 21st birthday. They booked an apartment and enjoyed an incident-free night at Star City casino. As they were heading home, trouble flared.

''A friend got involved in an argument with two guys behind me. I turned back to see if he was all right. Before I knew it, a fight broke out,'' Alex said.

''One of the guys threw a punch in my face, or at least I thought it was a punch. He stabbed me in the head with a knife.''

The attacker had removed the plastic blade handle from the knife, a common Sydney street trend that police say allows a blade to be concealed within a shirt sleeve or pants pocket during pat-downs by nightclub bouncers and security staff.

Alex's surgeon said: ''Alex was stabbed in his right temple alongside the lateral canthus of the right eye. Travelling parallel to the skull in the temporalis muscle - a two-millimetre thick tissue plane on the temple - the knife missed his eye, his skull as well as the major arteries, veins and nerves which are all tightly packed in that region.

''The blade then exited through the parieto-occipital skin at the back of the scalp on the same side. I've never seen anything like it. He was unbelievably lucky.''

Alex's attacker has not been found.