Teen on hospital ventilator after Florida face-biting attack

Snyder said Tuesday that Harrouff’s condition was “life-threatening”.

Harrouff, who was a star American Football player, took Advanced Placement classes in the International Baccalaurate program at school.

It took a Taser, multiple deputies and a K9 unit to subdue Harrouff so officers could pull him from 59-year-old John Stevens, from whose face the teen was biting pieces of flesh, according to a post on the Tequesta Police Department’s Facebook page.

The mother of a 19-year-old Florida State University student accused of fatally stabbing a couple outside their home and then biting the dead man’s face told police he had been acting strangely for days and claiming superpowers.

Harrouff was scheduled to have surgery on his hand Wednesday at St. Mary’s, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Trisha Kukuvka.

Forty-seven-year-old neighbor Jeff Fisher, who was also stabbed while trying to help, called police after hearing screams.

Harrouff tested negative for cocaine, meth, marijuana, and opiates.

Autopsies on both of the victims ruled their deaths homicides and found each died of blunt force trauma, the station reports.

There were signs of trouble leading up to Monday night’s breakdown. Harrouff’s parents are divorced, and neighbours of the home where Harrouff was living with his father, dentist Wade Harrouff, this summer say he seemed aggressive and rowdy. She said they would drive around the neighborhood in their golf cart with the dog sitting with them.

When Harrouff arrived at the hospital after the attack he was described as incoherent and making “animal-like noises”, but upon initial tests he was not found to have had drugs in his system and did not have a raised body temperature, which would suggest flakka use.

Mina says her son got into an argument and stormed off from the restaurant at around 8:30 that night.

His mother went on to explain Austin had been “acting unusual the last week or so” claiming he had superpowers and he was here to “protect people”. She told Officer Luis Rocha her son had no history of mental illness nor heavy drug use.

That gentle portrait clashes violently with what happened Monday night.

Family members haven’t been allowed to visit Harrouff, who has been sedated at the hospital and in the custody of sheriff’s officials, said Sheriff William Snyder. The muscular student stabbed the 50-something pair multiple times with a large pocket knife he often carried, as well as other instruments he found in the garage.

It took several other deputies, as well as a police K-9, to eventually separate Harrouff from the victim.