OMAHA, Neb. -- An Omaha teenager who was beaten at a college house party in May is warning others about the dangers of college house parties that get out of control.

Steven Kavanaugh, 19, said most of the scars from the attack are emotional, but he still has a jammed finger and a few staples in his head.

Kavanaugh was at a party in Lincoln on May 1 when two guys were being rude and overbearing to some of his friends.

“He said something like, “These people don’t want me here,’ and I said, ‘It’s not like that.’ He thought I was talking back to him,” Kavanaugh said.

Kavanaugh said that’s when Derrick Phipps threw him down the stairs, hit him in the face and dragged him outside to a curb, where Phipps and others repeatedly stomped on his head.

“My head bounced because they did it so hard,” Kavanaugh said.

His girlfriend, Emily Garner, said she and her friend tried to stop Phipps but couldn’t. She said that’s when they ran for help.

“Right before I went to get the cops, he was laying in the street in front of their car,” she said. “I thought they were going to run him over.”

Phipps and his friends fled the scene. Kavanaugh was unconscious and taken to a hospital.

“I really didn’t know how serious it was because I passed out,” he said.

Kavanaugh and his friends have since moved back to Omaha. He said he’s more cautious now and advises his peers to do the same.

“It’s kind of something you just have to keep your distance from,” he said.

Derrick Phipps was sentenced to spend a year in jail. Kavanaugh and Garner said there are lots of people like him out there and they urge people to only go to parties with big groups of friends and to leave if there are suspicious people there.