A Toronto woman is sharing her story of how she had to fight for her life after a stranger assaulted her while walking in Vancouver's Coal Harbour.
The Vancouver Police Department confirmed the assault took place on April 15 around 12:30 a.m.
A woman named Stephanie shared the violent incident on social media and said a complete random stranger tried to kill her.
She was visiting Vancouver for a vacation and was staying at a hotel near Coal Harbour.
“I was on the seawall just walking and I think this guy said something to me and I honest to god can’t remember what he said,” she said.
She turned and saw a man up on a grass hill.
“He didn’t even respond. He just ran at me to attack me,” she recalled.
“I’ve honest to god have never seen anything like that where it just felt like he was a predator and I was prey.”
The woman started running away from him and the man was able to catch up to her.
“He grabbed me by the back of my jacket and just slammed me into the ground,” she said.
“With that first assault, I was, one, stunned but also like, ‘Oh my god’ and I just started fighting and screaming.”
Thinking quickly, she used her bag that had cans and swung at the man.
“I was able to run off,” she said. “I pulled my phone out and called 911.”
The man caught up to her a second time. She said he grabbed her phone and smashed it on the ground.
“He was taking great joy in hurting me,” she said. “I just knew this person was not OK. There's no way to ration or reason with them. Just fight.”
She recalled being pulled down to the ground again and fighting back again.
“That’s when most of my injuries happened,” she said. “I was able to run off again and get pretty far before he grabbed me for the third time.”
This time, she claimed that the man punched her multiple times in the head and she blacked out.
“I just kept telling myself to get up, get up,” she said in the social media post.
“I was able to fight him off again and continue running.”
Stephanie has a broken nose, multiple cuts and bruises and her clothing was ripped apart.
“Thankfully, I encountered a group of people,” she said. “They actually happened to be a group of undercover plain-clothed cops.”
The man continued running after her and police were able to arrest him.
“I thought they were just a group of nice guys,” she said. “From there, they sat me down near the Westin [Bayshore] Hotel … and got my statement.”
She is very appreciative of all the help from each first responder she dealt with, including police, nurses, doctors and the victim services unit.
“I’m very lucky,” she said.
Peterhans Jalo Nungu has been charged with assault causing bodily harm and was taken into custody at the time of the offence. Nungu had his first court appearance on April 23.
@supitssteph Replying to @Sarah how a completely random stranger tried to kill me 🙃 #vanccouver #womenempowerment #fight ♬ original sound - Stephanie
