Terrelle Pryor’s attorney Wednesday contradicted accounts that his client was a “mutual combatant” in an altercation with his live-in girlfriend, in which she was charged with attempted murder for allegedly stabbing him in the chest and shoulder with a kitchen knife.

Beaver attorney Steve Colafella said Pryor was bleeding to death when Shalaya Briston, 24, and two female friends whom he declined to identify drove Pryor to Pittsburgh’s UPMC Mercy hospital, shoved him out of a vehicle onto a sidewalk and sped off.

Colafella said Pryor lost 3.5 liters of blood. The human body averages 4.7 liters to 5.5 liters, according to online medical sites.

“It was very, very close,” Colafella told reporters at his office. “It’s my understanding that within a few minutes he wasn’t going to make it.

”We are here today because our position is that Terrelle Pryor was in no way an aggressor in this situation, that this young lady was not reacting out of self-defense or any fear of injury at the hands of Terrelle Pryor. But, rather, this was a situation that was initiated as the result of the violent behavior and the attitudes of the women who came to his home Saturday morning.”

Pryor’s girlfriend denied bond

Earlier in the day, Briston’s attorney, Lee Rothman, said his client was defending herself from a “super-human force” embodied in the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Pryor, a Jeannette football standout and former NFL player. Briston was trying to protect herself when she stabbed him, Rothman said.

“My client was fearful he would harm her,” Rothman said during a bail hearing for his client, who was charged with attempted homicide and aggravated assault.

Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey A. Manning ruled that Briston is a danger to the community and denied her bond. She is being held in the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh.

Pryor was arraigned in the hospital on a charge of simple assault and released on $25,000 unsecured bond, according to Colafella. Pryor remains in the hospital.

Colafella said the fight at the apartment Pryor shared with Briston at the Heinz Lofts in Pittsburgh’s North Side neighborhood started after the couple and other friends, including the two unidentified women, spent Friday evening eating and drinking in a Pittsburgh restaurant.

Pryor went home while the women stayed out and continued drinking, Colafella said. Briston and her two friends loudly showed up at the apartment around 4 a.m. and awakened Pryor, he said.

Pryor went to the door and asked them to leave, he said, and a fight started.

Pittsburgh police described the couple as “mutual combatants” in the fight.

Rothman described Briston as a young woman with no criminal record who should have been granted reasonable bail. He said Briston would live with her family in Munhall if released.

“We’re extremely disappointed in this ruling,” he said after the bail hearing.

He said he may appeal the decision to state Superior Court or ask for another hearing before Manning.

Colafella said Pryor is disappointed that Briston’s friends were not charged.

Pryor’s agents and a representative of the NFL’s Security Department attended the press conference along with Pryor’s mother Thomasina, who declined comment.

Tom Davidson and Bob Bauder are Tribune-Review staff writers. You can contact Tom at 724-226-4715, tdavidson@tribweb.com or via Twitter @TribDavidson. You can contact Bob at 412-765-2312, bbauder@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobbauder.

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