“Get the hell away, just run.”

Those were the first thoughts that came to mind of a female ISU student who was attacked Friday night in Campustown.

“I didn’t recognize them at all, but I definitely would if I saw them again,” said the student who wishes to remain anonymous due to fear or possible threats of being attacked again.

Some images still remain a blur, but she said there were at least four men, dressed in black, who followed her into the apartment complex.

“I didn’t think anything of it, I thought that they probably lived here too,” she said.

With the start of the new semester, the student’s plan for the night was to go out on a Thursday night, have a couple drinks, have some fun, then go home and get a good night’s rest for class the following afternoon.

“One of the men followed me into the elevator,” she said, “and that’s when he grabbed my head and slammed it into the wall of the elevator.”

Fear and panic ran through her mind while she kicked and scratched.

The elevator doors opened as they reached her destination at the third level. After kicking and clawing at the attacker’s face, she was able to crawl out of the elevator and run away from him.

“I still am wondering why this happened to me. I don’t get why someone would do that,” the student said. “I banged on everyone’s door in the hallway when finally the girls next door to me answered.”

Her neighbors wiped the blood flowing down her face and called for an ambulance. A note was left for her roommate explaining there had been an incident and she was being taken to Mary Greeley Medical Center.

The hardest part for the victim is dealing with the “whys” and “what ifs” of the situation.

“The scariest part is I wasn’t even outside walking home at the time, I was in my complex,” she said. “What if I had just been going down to get the mail?”

She wasn’t walking across Ames nor did she have to cross a main road. With less than a block to walk from Paddy’s, 124 Welch Ave., to her residence at Welch Crown Center, 217 Welch Ave., being attacked was the least of her worries. 

“It happened so fast. It was one second I was in my complex and the next I was on the floor bleeding,” she said.

She recalls blacking out momentarily.

“Everyone you see you’re not going to look at them and think, ‘Are you going to hit me?'” she said. “It’s one of those things where I can’t help but think, ‘What if I wasn’t walking home by myself?'”

Her friends continue to sympathize and apologize for not walking home with her, but being assaulted wasn’t anyone’s expectation that night.

“It was completely unexpected and you don’t ever think it will happen to you,” she said. 

It remains unknown as to whether the attacker wanted to rape her, take her purse or just hurt her. These questions may never be answered. 

“If he was any bigger than what he was, I may not have been able to fight against him,” she said. “I’m lucky he was small enough for me to get away.”

Walking away from this incident leaves the student with wounds on her head and a new can of Mace Pepper Spray.

“I just want people to know that this kind of stuff does happen. It’s scary. People think because we’re in a small town that it won’t happen to them,” she said. “None of my girl friends walk home alone anymore; we’ve realized that it’s too risky.”