A 20-year-old man from Jharkhand's Dumka who was stabbed multiple times in a fair near his home earlier this month underwent surgery at a Calcutta hospital and is recovering well, doctors said.

Anand Kumar, an undergraduate student of history, went to save his friend who was being thrashed by a group when he was stabbed multiple times in his chest.

A doctor who treated him at Ruby General Hospital said he was stabbed once on the left side of the chest and twice on the right side.

When Anand arrived at the hospital on November 10, doctors could not feel his pulse. His blood pressure, too, could not be recorded.

The doctors told the family that they were not sure whether they could save the youth.

"When the patient arrived, we could record neither his pulse nor his blood pressure," said Sankhadip Pramanik, a cardiothoracic surgeon at the hospital.

A chest X-ray revealed a massive haemothorax — a condition marked by blood accumulation in the pleural space, the cavity between the lungs and the rib cage.

"Ideally, there should be no blood in this cavity. But blood had accumulated in Anand's pleural space because the stab wound had shifted the trachea," he said.

The doctors set up a chest drain and removed 2.5 to 3 litres of blood from the cavity. This was followed by a blood transfusion.

"The patient remained in the ICU for two days. When his condition became stable, we shifted him to the general ward," said Pramanik.

"This was one of the rarest of rare cases as the patient arrived with an unrecordable pulse and BP. Immediate blood drainage and blood transfusion saved him," he said.

Anand is likely to be discharged on Monday.

"I went to a Chhath Puja fair on November 9 and saw a group of men beating up my friend. When I went to his rescue, more people arrived and started beating me up. They stabbed me with a knife," Anand said.

A friend suggested that the family take Anand to Calcutta when he was being referred from one hospital to another in Jharkhand.