Unless you’ve ever been faced with the situation, it’s difficult to know how you would react if you were attacked by someone with a weapon.
I’m not sure of what I would do — I know that I’d be terrified. I hope that I wouldn’t panic and would be able to get out of the situation safely.
When Lillian Germond was attacked by a man with armed with a machete, the thug had no idea what he was getting himself into.
Lillian, who goes by Lilly, was on her way to her apartment building in Seattle around 3:30 AM on New Year’s Day. She had parked about a block away and was walking towards home. Lilly had no idea that there was a man holding a machete, waiting to attack.
The man walked up behind her, but Lilly didn’t think much of it — she assumed he was just another of the many people who were still out celebrating. As she entered her apartment building, she realized that she was dead wrong.
She began to put in the code for her key coded building and even offered to hold the door for the man.
“I thought it was one of my neighbors and was about to try and get my key out when this guy came straight for me and I realized he had a machete,” she said. “I backed up against my front door and he said, ‘Don’t (expletive) move.’”
Lilly thought the man was trying to rob her, so she tried to give him her bag said to him, “Here, you can have everything.”
But that’s not what wanted. He grabbed her by the throat and raised the machete. At that moment, she realized she had to do something to protect herself.
“OK, here we go,” she told herself. “It’s either fight or die.”
Fortunately, thanks to her father, a retired police officer, Lilly had self-defense training that kicked in when she needed it the most. She grabbed the blade, injuring her hand but surprising her attacker as she screamed for her boyfriend, Chauncey.
“When he heard Chauncey moving and yelling, he tried to pull away,” Germond said.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/its-either-fight-or-die-seattle-woman-fights-off-machete-wielding-man-on-new-years-day/Lilly is very popular this week. A good write-up.
Posted by Chauncey Efrain Arkfeld on Friday, January 5, 2018
But, Lilly wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. She put him in a headlock and they both fell down the building’s front steps. She grabbed a chair leg from the ground nearby and began hitting him with it. By the time she was finished with him, he was begging for her to stop.
“I didn’t want him to do this to someone else,” she said.
More neighbors came out to help and the police were called. They arrived quickly and took the assailant away.
The man, Steven Jahn, 21, was charged with felony second-degree assault and fourth-degree assault. He is being held in King County Jail on $100,000 bail and was scheduled to be arraigned on Jan. 18.
Later, Lilly’s father was interviewed about his daughter’s bravery and he couldn’t be more proud.
“I’m almost in tears when I talk about her, not because I’m sad but because I’m proud,” he said. “She’s a warrior woman and she’s trained all her life to do this. And I want other girls and other daughters to hear early training is good, self-defense is good.”
Lilly is lucky that her father took the time to teach her self-defense and that it probably saved her life. Please share this brave woman’s story!
