"I was scared to death. I was thinking about dying," said Steve Wilder of his near-death experience last week

Wilder woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't breathe, his air passage swollen shut, he told WOWT-TV. "It just blocked all the way and I just got up and I panicked!" he said.

The 55-year-old Wilder, who said he didn't think he had time to call and wait for help, had the choice of lying there and suffocating or taking matters in his own hands with a steak knife.

"Got a knife and located it and pushed in and blood went gush," he said. Blood was gushing out, but air was gushing in. "I think I closed my eyes, but fear or something took over. I didn't feel no pain or nothing," he told WOWT-TV.

A bout with throat cancer gave him some idea where to go with the knife.

"I was thinking about my family and here's what I am saying, I think God had it all to do," he said to the television station.