By NATASHA COLLINS
A Sunnyvale woman said she was attacked Feb. 26 while running near Cherry Chase Elementary School.
The 35 year-old woman was running on Heatherstone Avenue around 10:30 p.m. when a man came out of the shrubs and hit her on the back of the head with a blunt object. The blow caused a three-inch skull fracture and a one-inch cut.
"It felt like an explosion in my head," said the woman, who wished to remain anonymous. "It felt like something fell out of the sky and hit me. My breath was taken away when I turned around and saw that someone had done this to me."
The man was holding a sticklike object above his head, she said.
"I thought he was going to hit me again, so I covered my head to deflect the next blow," she said. "I put my Walkman up to protect myself. Better the Walkman than me."
The woman began screaming and the man ran away from her. "No one opened their doors or came to help me," she said. "I was afraid to go to one of the houses because I thought no one would open their door to a screaming, bloody woman, and then I would be trapped between him and the house."
The woman ran home and called police.
The woman said she was running in an area where there were streetlights and had been attacked near an intersection.
The man may have been following the woman before the attack. The woman was listening to music on headphones and said she did not notice if she was being followed.
The man was described as Hispanic with a square-shaped jaw. He weighs approximately 190 pounds and has a stocky build, the woman said. His hair was short and he wore a dark sweatshirt and jeans.
The woman has begun to pass out fliers in her neighborhood in an effort to protect others, she said. "I want people to be aware of what has happened," she said.
Police have returned to the area several times and have questioned neighbors regarding the incident, a police spokesman said. Neighbors did not report hearing the woman scream or seeing her running. The attack is still under investigation.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, March 19, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.