Teenager survives knife attack
2007-03-01
AN 18-year-old girl had a narrow escape last week when she was attacked by a knife-wielding man in broad daylight while walking home from the Paarl Mall.
On the Sunday afternoon Ashton Davis, who matriculated at La Rochelle last year, was walking to her home in Nuwe Vlei Street, Paarl South.
She had just exited the southern gate of the Mall when she heard someone behind her. As she started picking up speed to escape, a man grabbed her from behind and dragged her off the road.
“He held a knife to my throat and was forcing me away from the road.
There was no one around me and I was terrified,” recalls Ashton.
A passer-by, Wilmin Riffel, said that he and his family were driving towards the mall when he saw the suspect walking behind Ashton.
“As I turned into the Mall, my son shouted that she had been grabbed.
“I immediately turned my car around and when I got to the scene, the suspect had already dragged her into a ditch.
“I grabbed my steering wheel lock and started chasing the man. He fled over the railway line before I could catch him.
“I went back to assist Ashton and only then realised that she had been stabbed and was full of blood. I fetched a piece of cloth in the car to try and stop the bleeding.”
Another car stopped and Karmen Schmidt immediately assisted us. She then sped off to the hospital with Ashton.”
Ashton’s parents were in Gauteng on business at the time of the incident, and Schmidt had to pay her admittance fee to Paarl MediClinic.
Ashton had been stabbed in the back, arm and between her ribs, puncturing her left lung.
Riffel said that he does not want to think what would have happened to Ashton if he had not coincidentally driven past the scene.
“I walk that road often to the Mall and have never thought of the dangers that could lurk there. But unfortunately I learnt my lesson the hard way.
“I can only warn other people to never walk alone in deserted areas,” said Ashton from her hospital bed.
No one has been arrested in connection with the incident.
- Lise Beyers
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