Tourist Fights Off Knife Attacker

[FearlessFreep]

From http://www.nypost.com/seven/06182008/news/regionalnews/tourists_bloody_ny_ordeal_116056.htm

A 19-year-old Italian tourist was ambushed by a knife-wielding thug as she headed to a party on the Upper East Side - but she managed to disarm the attacker by grabbing his blade with her bare hands and wrestling it away, police said yesterday.
Carolina Ottone, 19, of Como, was at Lexington Avenue and 86th Street at about 11:30 p.m. Monday, when the brutal stranger approached her near a pharmacy.
He had been following her for about two blocks.
"He took his knife outside his pocket and grabbed me from behind," she told The Post.
Then the thug put his left arm around Ottone's throat. But he picked the wrong victim because the fiery Italian teen bravely fought back.
..

 

[Kacey]

Brave girl.... too back the bastard got away.

 

[Ahriman]

Naay, we know she should have grabbed the wrist... (just having a strange sense of humour, I know you can't really grab it - especially without any kind of training)
Seriously now.
Brave indeed. A good example of doing what you must when you must no matter what. I like her attitude - preferring losing fingers to death. You can't expect half of this from the "average person". (I mean you can't expect them to do this - everyone would say the same, but doing it...)

(for those who think I make fun of the girl: absolutely not, I appreciate her bravery. I've cut and burned myself on several occasions quite seriously when working and I always laughed at it, even when a piece of steel hung from my forearm or leg. I hope she recovers at least as quickly as I did after those.)

 

[Deaf Smith]

What? And the cops didn't arrest the girl for upsetting the mugger? Didn't the mugger know it's against the law to have knives in that city? What has happened up there to cause them to see a person as a right to defend themselves?

Now since she has the right to defend herself, then surely she had the right to the means of effectivly defending herself (yea, a gun.)

I hope she gets the use of her hand back. The hand that took the knife blade. I bet the cuts were to the bone. And I hope the mugger spends more than a week in jail before they bond him out and drop the charges when she goes back to Italy.

Deaf

 

[arnisador]

Good for her!

 

[MA-Caver]

I recall reading an article in a magazine years ago that was published for military personnel (got it from my brother). It talked about H2H combat training. In it the instructor was demonstrating unarmed vs knife combat. The instructor allowed himself to be attacked by a (real) knife welding soldier and grabbed the blade then promptly put the attacker on the defensive by putting them on the ground and the blade turned against them.
A comment quoted by the instructor stuck with me ever-since. "As the rest of the trainees stood around and stared at the bright red blood dripping from the instructor's hand the instructor said: Sometimes you just gotta throw away your hand..." (ok that wasn't exactly as the article was written but close enough).
I've been in a few knife encounters but I've yet to be brave/dumb enough to reach for the opponent's blade itself. The wrist or arm but never for the steel.

Still better to have what happened to her than a full blown rape and possibly murder.
Glad she's okay, glad she stood up for herself and refused to be a victim.

 

[punisher73]

Glad she's ok. Hope her hand heals quickly and she gets full use of it again.

That takes some big stones to fight back and not just submit. Good for her.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Now nobody would advocate grabbing the blade as it is risky. Still this episode just reiterates what I have said for a long time in that their are no absolutes in the martial sciences. What might get you killed in one moment, might just save your life in another.

 

[Darth F.Takeda]

Did she not get the memo that Paul Vunak and half the board at ********* claim that youake a knife away from an attacker?

Not a martial artist and she pulled it off, sdo if you train in a realistic system, your odds are even better.

There is allways hope untill there is none.

 

[bowser666]

That is great that the mugger got surprised like that. Just think if the person had some extensive MA training , they would have really scared the crap out of the mugger!! HAHA Score 1 for the good guys !!

 

[arnisador]

I posted this on FMAT:

Woman stabs alleged attacker

The woman told the Tribune-Star that she noticed a blue Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible driving around the parking lot in front of her Garden Quarter apartment as she was walking to her car. The driver parked next to her vehicle when she got into her car, and she said he jumped in the back seat and tried to strangle her and use a Taser on her. [...]the suspect order the woman to leave the parking lot. The woman, an Iraq war veteran, said as she was leaving the lot she grabbed a knife she keeps by her front seat and stabbed the attacker in each hand as he grabbed at her throat. Her vehicle left the roadway, coming to rest about 150 south of Jessica Drive on the east side of Carlisle Steet. She said she also reached over the seat with the knife and stabbed him again before he fled in an undetermined direction.[...]The suspect has stab wounds to both hands and one leg, authorities were reporting.

Good for her! Sounds like she kept her wits about her. Here's a good thing about more women having been in the military...more "victims" spread around the civilian population that will put stigmata in an attacker like this.

 

[exile]

It's scary to think about how fine her sense of judgment had to be to not stab too deeply, eh? Jabbing too hard in a thin part of the hand... or between fingers.... while this guys hands were around her throat... :erg:

Gutsy and enterprising, absolutely, but also VERY lucky!

 

[tellner]

Good for her!

I'm really not very surprised. An armed combat veteran fought a random criminal. What's surprising is that she showed such restraint and compassion and didn't just kill him. It is to her very great credit.