Kyli Watts’ first words after random LA stabbing
The LA woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury when a homeless man stabbed her in the head with gardening shears FaceTimed her mom after the brutal attack — and her first words were: “Mom, this is serious, I’ve been stabbed!”
Kyli Watts, 24, was walking in North Hollywood about 11:30 a.m. Oct. 10 when 30-year-old Jonathan Cole allegedly rammed the tool with 4-inch blades into the back of her head for no apparent reason, police said.
With the shears still embedded in her skull, Watts ran to a nearby restaurant, where she called 911 and FaceTimed her mother, Amy Watts, a psychiatric nurse in North Carolina.
“I gave my typical ‘Hey, what’s up, baby girl?’ and the first words out of her mouth were, ‘Mom, this is serious, I’ve been stabbed,’” Amy told Fox LA reported.
At that moment, the young woman was unaware that the shears were still stuck in her head, according to the news outlet.
Doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center had to leave a bone fragment in place after the shear shattered her skull because it was very close to a major blood vessel — meaning removing it would have been too dangerous, Amy told the station.
Still, despite the horrendous attack, the mom said she and her daughter harbor no anger toward the homeless assailant.
“If this were a person with epilepsy that had not taken their medication and had a seizure at the wheel and hit your child crossing the street, would you really be angry, or do you understand that that’s a person with an illness?” Amy said.
“That’s what we’re dealing with here,” added the longtime foster parent whose family has experience with the severely mentally ill.
“To become numb and callous to it is not the right answer. These things are occurring because of systemic failure in treating mental illness,” the psychiatric nurse added.
Kyli was recently laid off from her job in tech recruiting, for which she moved to Los Angeles a few weeks ago.
She currently has no health insurance, according to a GoFundMe set up on her behalf.
Amy said her daughter is usually the one who scrolling through the fundraising pages “bawling” and “donating left and right.”
“And now she’s the recipient. It’s an interesting universal switch,” the mom added.
Her daughter has undergone surgery for a traumatic brain injury and now faces a difficult road to recovery.
“She’s going to come out of this stronger and with an incredible story,” the stoic mother said.
Meanwhile, her daughter’s attacker faces possible charges for attempted murder as well as assault with a deadly weapon.
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