Student thanks lucky stars she’s alive after attack
KUCHING: A Sarawakian student Abigail Asrina Amiruddin thanks her lucky stars to be alive after surviving a brutal attack at a students’ hostel in North London on Feb 28.
The 23-year- old from Kuching was struck from behind with a hammer allegedly by a fellow student residing at the same hostel which left her with an 8cm gash at the back of her head, a cut on top of her head and multiple bruises to her arms.
Currently studying animation at Middlesex University in London, Abigail told a national daily that she had just finished breakfast that morning and was getting ready for class when she suddenly felt a blow on the back of her head, and fell down.
“My first thought was that maybe something fell from the ceiling.
“But when I looked up, I saw him with a hammer and he just struck me with the hammer over and over on the head,” she said in a video interview posted by the daily on Wednesday ( March 6).
She started screaming for help but to her dismay, no one came to her aid.
“He didn’t want to stop and it was until I screamed really, really loud that he snapped out of it and he f led,” she said, and recalled that her assailant had ‘ really long hair’ which covered his face.
“When he attacked me, he wasn’t saying anything either. He was just hitting me...it was very weird and very strange.”
After the attacker left, Abigail, who was bleeding profusely, crawled out from her hostel to the courtyard where she was helped by two students who brought her to the office.
She was then sent to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington in an ambulance where a CT scan was performed and her injuries treated.
In the video interview, Abigail is seen with her left arm still in a sling a week after the attack.
“On the first and second day (after the attack), it ( left arm) was really swollen and blue. I had to go back to the hospital to have it x-rayed,” she said.
With her current condition, Abigail, who is a Yayasan Sarawak Tun Taib scholar, is worried that she would not be able to finish her final project in time.
“My presentation is all I could think of and I really don’t want to delay and hope that I can finish my project by end of March or April.
“But at the moment, I have to draw really slowly because my wrist hurts a lot,” she said.
The national daily reported that Abigail’s attacker is now in police custody pending an appearance in court on March 29.