Stroke brought on by stalker has left Maria Venuti with blood on the brain
CONVALESCING entertainer Maria Venuti briefly opened her eyes on Sunday — 24 hours after a stalker terrorised her at her Gladesville home, triggering a stroke.
The much-loved singer, 75, roused momentarily before slipping back into a semiconscious state after doctors at Royal North Shore Hospital operated to relieve pressure on the brain caused by an internal bleed.
It was a small yet welcome positive sign for Venuti’s daughter Bianca who has maintained a vigil at her mother’s side — sleeping with her and holding her hand through the long nights since the traumatic events of Saturday morning.
While police yesterday continued to evaluate the psychiatric condition of the 38-year-old unidentified man found at Venuti’s property in another ward at RNSH, close sources revealed it was a neighbour who sounded the alarm on Saturday morning after Venuti started screaming at the stalker from inside her home at 8.30am.
“The man had been walking up and down the side of Maria’s house and tripping a security light which kept going on and off,” a family friend told The Daily Telegraph.
“She was inside screaming at him and it alerted the woman next door who must have called the police and her daughter Bianca.”
The man was still banging on Venuti’s door when police officers from Ryde Local Area Command arrived at the house shortly after. Venuti had suffered what ambulance officers would later diagnose as a stroke and had collapsed behind a door preventing police from gaining access.
Her daughter Bianca arrived soon after with a key to admit officers. Venuti was found “incoherent and disoriented” in her bathroom. Police officers from Ryde Local Area Command were able to subdue the man who had allegedly become violent with a Taser witnesses said.
Venuti was said to be in a stable condition last night. Friends were eager to reassure Venuti’s many fans that online reports stating the entertainer with the big personality had died were inaccurate.
Earlier, doctors informed the entertainer’s family had been left with a significant amount of blood on the brain.
The famously gregarious Venuti, who has devoted herself to raising money for charity but is perhaps best known for her reoccurring roles in the TV series Pizza and Swift and Shift Couriers, was found at her home at 9am on Saturday — family and police unable to access the room
Venuti had collapsed in as she had fallen behind a door.
She was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital where she was sedated and is currently under observation.
Just days earlier Venuti had been a larger than life fixture in the Birdcage at Flemington for Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival.
Venuti’s only child, Bianca, is at her mother’s side in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
The incident comes just two days after Port Macquarie doctor Angela Jay was stabbed 11 times and doused with petrol by an obsessed stalker, Paul Lambert, who she met on dating site Tinder, and who was later shot and killed by police.
Dr Jay has now been released from hospital.
Maria Venuti in the Birdcage 2:06
Luke Dennehy catches up with Maria Venuti in the Birdcage on Derby Day