| | HONOLULU -- Oregon State football player Charles O'Neal, who
was stabbed in the back in Waikiki after playing in the Oahu Bowl,
has been released from a Honolulu hospital.
The 6-foot-2, 285-pound defensive lineman is resting at a
Waikiki hotel, waiting for doctors to give him approval to leave
Honolulu, said Darrell Large of the Visitor Aloha Society of
Hawaii. O'Neal, 21, was released from Queen's Medical Center late
Monday afternoon.
O'Neal has a doctor's appointment Thursday, and if given
approval, he will fly to California on Friday morning to spend New
Year's with his family, Large said.
"It looks like he will have a 100 percent recovery," Large
said.
However, if the knife had gone a little to the right, the wound
could have been fatal, Large said.
"He doesn't blame the people of Hawaii and told me I should let
anyone who asks know that he appreciates the aloha and support that
he has been getting," Large said.
"What happened to me could have happened to anyone," O'Neal
said through the visitor society, which is providing the hotel
room, meals and transportation.
Stanley Hong, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii and
a graduate of Oregon State, wrote to the president of the
university hoping to alleviate any bad feelings as a result of the
attack on O'Neal and teammate Paul Luoma.
"This is not the spirit of aloha we extend to everyone who comes to Hawaii," Hong said.
O'Neal and Luoma were attacked outside a Waikiki fast-food
restaurant around 4:30 a.m. Sunday. Luoma suffered a cut to his
torso but didn't require hospitalization and left Honolulu with the
team later Sunday.
Police are looking for at least two men suspected in the attack,
which occurred several hours after Hawaii beat Oregon State in the Oahu Bowl.
The attack was reported nationally and bowl officials and others
in the state are hoping the incident doesn't have a negative effect
on the game or on people's perceptions of Hawaii.
"It's really too bad that an isolated incident like this gets
magnified," said Lenny Klompus of Bowl Games of Hawaii.
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