Gamblero talks to reporters, says he still feels pain from being tossed

Jeffrey Gamblero returned to Barclays Center Friday night, but like the team he roots for, he was not himself, saying the "bumps and bruises and lumps" he suffered when being carted out of the Garden last Wednesday had robbed him of his enthusiasm. He also said doctors have prescribed "mad medicine" for his pain but that the Nets win over the Knicks was "way better than any morphine they could have pumped me up with."

Gamblero, whose real name is Jeffrey Vanchiro, spoke to reporters about the trauma.

"I'm Jeffrey Vanchiro right now," he told Mike Mazzeo. "I'm looking for Jeffrey Gamblero. If you find him, let me know. ... I'm alive. I'm not my normal self, but I'm working towards getting back to that. I have a lot of recovery to do: physically, mentally, emotionally. My goal is to get back to being Jeffrey Gamblero by the All-Star break."

Details of what happened remain unclear as Nets "superfan" and MSG security are still giving varying accounts of what happened.  One key point in dispute is how his leg became detached.

Mitch Abramson of the Daily News quotes both a Garden source. "As he was being ejected, Gamblero bizarrely detached his left prosthetic leg in what he described as a "peaceful protest" against the Garden ushers, waved it around and refused to put it back on when he was asked to do so, according to a Garden source."

Gamblero says that's not the case.

Gamblero told Abramson that one of the guards actually grabbed his right leg and pushed it into his left prosthetic leg when they were trying to eject him from his seat  30 feet from the Nets bench. At that point, Gamblero said he removed the prosthetic leg and started "swaying it" and balancing it on top of his head in protest.

After being ejected, he demanded that the Garden call an ambulance and that he carried to it on a stretcher.

Of the entire incident, he the Daily News, "The last time I had something this traumatic was when they chopped my leg off 17 years ago (after an accident). I've been to prison and this was worse than all of this stuff."

However, Gamblero said he has no intentions of suing, telling NJ.com, ""I try to stay away from the legal system, because that's not my field of expertise, so I don't think about things like that."

• Nets fan tells News his side of bizarre ejection at Garden - Mitch Abramson - New York Daily News
• Brooklyn Nets 'super fan' Jeffrey Gamblero says 'a lot of recovery' needed after MSG removal - Mike Mazzeo - ESPN New York
• Forcibly ejected Nets fan with prosthetic leg says he won't sue for being carried from Madison Square Garden - Kevin Manahan - NJ.com
  

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