There may be tons of studies saying your cellphone is killing you, but for one Georgia man, his device ended up saving his life.

Jerry Scriver was taking out the trash behind a Dalton strip mall near his job last Friday, with his Samsung Galaxy S2 in his shirt pocket like always, when a man approached him and began speaking Spanish, CBS46 reported.

Scriver told the station the man made a gesture as if he wanted money. When Scriver said he didn't have any, the man pulled out a switch blade.

"He had a knife in his pocket, pulled it out and started waving it around. Probably about 12 inches maybe," Scriver said. "He just starts waving it a little bit like what are you going to do kind of. I started walking backwards trying to diffuse the situation."

The assailant charged forward and tried to plunge the blade into Scriver's chest, but the knife wouldn't go through- it was blocked by Scriver's waterproof OtterBox cellphone case.

"We both kind of looked at each other for a minute. It was almost like a still photo or something you would see in the movies," the victim told CBS46. "I looked at him and he looked at me and he looked at me like why are you still standing."

Scriver's attacker, whom he described as Hispanic and 5 feet 5 inches tall, fled the scene once he realized he couldn't wound his victim. Scriver called 911 but as of Thursday it's unclear if any arrests were made.

Aside from a few scratches and bruises, Scriver escaped the attempted mugging unharmed. But the incident had more of an emotional toll than a physical one.

"We have a lot to live for and it just, reality sets in after a while," he told the station. He later suffered from anxiety attacks and had trouble sleeping.

"I thank God he was watching over me that day, sure it was the phone, but there is more than meets the eye," Scriver said.