Note: This article contains a photograph showing the severe injuries sustained by the student.
A STUDENT WHO was assaulted while on a night out in Letterkenny has said she didn’t know if her attacker was going to stop.
Shanan Reid McDaid, 18, was speaking on Today with Sean O’Rourke on RTE Radio 1 where she described how her night out with friends ended in her being taken to hospital.
The attack happened at 3am in the early hours of Sunday morning in Market Square in the Donegal town. Shanan was walking towards her friends, who were ahead of her, when a man started following her.
“He was calling me a slut and a bitch but I kept walking,” she said. “I didn’t pay attention to it because he just looked normal.”
After continuing to follow her, Shanan said she was going to ask him what his problem was, but she didn’t get the chance as she was knocked to the ground. Her attacker then proceeded to attack her while she was on the ground, leaving her badly beaten.
“I thought this could be it, but thank god that didn’t happen.”
The attack lasted “maybe a few minutes. It’s such a blur”, Shanan told the radio programme. She believes a passing car may have startled her attacker, causing him to run away.
At this point she caught up with her friends who were shocked at what had happened.
She suffered a broken nose, chipped teeth, cuts on the side of head, and bruising. They couldn’t get a taxi so stopped a random driver instead who took her to hospital.
A number of gardai, who were at the hospital for a separate incident, spoke to Shanan about the attack.
She described her assailant as wearing a navy suit jacket, jeans, a light coloured shirt, brown/dirty blonde hair, and didn’t appear to wear any glasses or have facial hair.
A Letterkenny native, Shanan said her parents had always worried about something like this happening in bigger cities and not in their own hometown.
“Things like this don’t happen in Letterkenny,” she said her parents had told her.
“I’m definitely getting better every day,” she added. “Still pretty sore and some things will take a while longer to heal.”
The assault is still being investigated.
Gardai are asking for anyone who has any information to contact Letterkenny Garda Station at 0749167100.
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