Sixty miles doesn't seem that far on a bike. Some of us commute that every day. But we don't do it through the jungles of Brazil and we don't do it with a damn chef's knife stabbed through our skull.

Juacelo Nunes with one man, who then called three of his friends, one of which reportedly pulled a 12-inch knife and began stabbing Nunes in the torso and head.

The blade missed his left eye, but embedded itself through his mouth and into the right side of his jaw.

"I did not see the moment of the stabbing," says Nunes. "But at no time fainted and remained conscious even with pain."

Nunes – a 39-year-old motorcycle cabbie – eventually staggered to his bike, then rode north for two hours from Agua Branca to a hospital in Teresina where doctors removed the knife and repair his face and jaw over a three-hour surgery. He's expected to make a full recovery and made it home to his wife for New Year's.