Ryan Eugene Nisbet told a Deschutes County Circuit Court jury he cut Ricky Lee Anderson’s throat in self-defense because Anderson had grabbed him by the throat at a Bend movie theater on March 22.

”I felt light-headed, confused and scared,” the 20-year-old testified Wednesday. ”I could not breathe or yell for help.”

Nisbet then cut a 2-inch gash across the left side of Anderson’s neck and ran out of the Regal Cinemas’ Old Mill 10 on Powerhouse Drive.

Anderson, 28, survived the attack and Nisbet was arrested the next day. He is now on trial for attempted murder and first-degree assault.

The jury is expected to begin deliberating the case after final arguments today.

Nisbet testified the fight started after Anderson began swearing at his friend, Joshua Ray Walter, 20, when Walter’s cell phone began ringing during the movie ”Exit Wounds.”

Anderson and Walter then began to argue and came face-to-face in the middle of the theater aisle, Nisbet said.

”Soon as Josh got within an arm’s length of him, Anderson began punching him, and they both started swinging,” Nisbet said.

”I was just watching to make sure nothing happened to my friend,” he said, adding he saw Anderson had a clenched fist with something shiny in it.

Anderson pushed Walter against the back of a chair and began choking him, according to Nisbet.

”I grabbed Anderson by the arm. I was just trying to break it up. I had a knife in my back pocket and I asked him, ‘You want to get cut?’” he said.

Nisbet said Anderson then grabbed him around the throat and began applying ”quite a bit of pressure.”

”Did you try to kill him?” Nisbet’s attorney, Mike Miller, asked.

”No, I did not,” Nisbet replied.

Nisbet’s testimony contradicted testimony given by John Thiebes and Christopher Haines, who don’t know Anderson or Nisbet.

Haines testified on Tuesday, the first day of the trial, that Haines was the one who broke up the fight.

Thiebes corroborated the statement.

Before Nisbet took the stand, Bend police Officer Kecia Weaver told the jury that Anderson was intoxicated when she interviewed him at St. Charles Medical Center the night of the knifing.

Photographic evidence showed several beer cans were found in the back of the theater, where Anderson and several of his friends said they had been seated.

Weaver said Anderson was coherent and had no trouble communicating.

She said Anderson told her that Walter punched him three times after he had asked him several times to turn off his cell phone, but he never touched Walter.

”He said he saw a right arm come across his body and came across his neck,” Weaver said. ”He felt a cold straight edge, like a Leatherman tool, and knew he had been cut.”

If convicted on either charge, Nisbet faces a mandatory 7 years in prison.

The defense is expected to call one witness this morning before resting its case.