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A bruised Dirce Ganci: ‘I tried to remain standing and fought with him’ |
Pensioner: How I fought off knifeman
‘I knew that if he managed to get me to the ground that would be the end,’ she reveals
A PENSIONER who bravely struggled with a knifeman during a street attack believes her determination to stay on her feet saved her from worse injuries.
Dirce Ganci, 71, said she was told by her attacker “If you scream, you’re going to die” as he held a knife to her throat in Store Street, Bloomsbury.
She spent five days in hospital after being punched in the face and kidneys. Tendons and nerves in her arm were severed when she grabbed the knife.
After returning to her Bloomsbury home from University College Hospital on Friday, she relived the attack. “I knew that if he managed to get me to the ground that would be the end, so I tried to remain standing and fought with him,” she said.
The ordeal continues to haunt her. “There is a funny feeling in the house,” she said. “My sleep is disturbed every night because I have dreams about what happened.”
Two passers-by are understood to have scared off her attacker and administered first aid, using Ms Ganci’s scarf as a makeshift bandage.
Speaking with a bruised face and her arm still in a cast, Ms Ganci fears the injuries to her arm may cause her to have problems moving it in future.
Her grandson, Jason Edwards, said of Ms Ganci, who moved to Camden from Italy in 1958: “She’s remained very strong and hasn’t let it get to her. She’s a fighter.”
Police forensic teams sealed off the scene of the attack and conducted a fingertip search for clues.
Store Street, home to restaurants and an art gallery, is popular during the day with students and lecturers from nearby University College London, but residents and shop owners say it changes at night.
Iona Khan, who works in a nearby street, said: “It is a beautiful little street but it is a rat-run for criminals at night. A lot of drug dealers have moved up here because of the building work at King’s Cross.”
Louise Christopher, manager of sandwich shop Garners, said: “It is definitely upsetting, especially as we were broken into twice at the end of last year.”
Ms Ganci’s attacker is believed to be a white man wearing a grey woollen hat, who fled the scene towards Tottenham Court Road.
Detective Inspector John Marriott, from Camden CID, described it as “a shocking attack on a vulnerable lady who sustained some very nasty injuries”.
He asked witnesses to call Camden police on 020 7404 1212 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. |
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