Plea for help: Teen describes brutal attack on FIU campus

As she was brutally beaten on the Biscayne Bay Campus of Florida International University, 15-year-old Isabela Perdomo thought to herself, “OK, let me try not to die.”

That’s what she remembered about Sept. 10 when she and fellow honor student, 16-year-old James Critz were attacked by a man. With her mother by her side, Perdomo told reporters Wednesday what she recalled about the incident. Her comments came at a press conference that was also a plea for anyone with information to come forward in order to identify a suspect in the case.

Perdomo and Critz are students at MAST@ FIU, the Marine Academy of Science and Technology magnet high school in MiamiDade.

Before the attack, they were in a remote wooded area of the FIU campus in North Miami at 3000 NE 151st St., collecting samples for a school project.

They were walking back when the assailant appeared.

“It was completely random,’’ she recalled, according to The Miami Herald. “We were, James and I, on our way back and out of nowhere, were both attacked.”

She said the man used a tree branch to deliver the beating.

“I had two hits, here and here,” Perdomo said, pointing to each side of her forehead, as seen in a broadcast on WFOR-Ch. 4. One of her eyes is still red and swollen from the beating.

Her injuries included hearing and vision loss and arm fractures. She and Critz also had fractured skulls. He was knocked out from the beating and they both spent days being treated at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood before being released.

A week after the incident, police released an updated sketch of the man described to be between 18 and 20-years old and standing about 5-feet, 10-inches-tall. He has short-cropped brown hair, a medium-dark complexion and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a white T-shirt with graphics on the front and dark-colored cargo shorts.

“I want to catch him and I would want to figure out why he did it,’’ Perdomo said during the press conference. “I want to know his intentions.”

The FIU Police Department asks anyone with information on the attacker’s identity to contact Crime Stoppers of Miami-Dade County at 305-471-8477 or online at www.crimestoppersmiami.com.