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| Everything will be all right: Ika calming Dr Catherine at the site of the attack at Taman Tun Abdul Razak, Ampang, Sunday. |
AMPANG JAYA: Seeing a naked man pounce and rain blows on her employer, a petite Indonesian maid lunged at the much bigger assailant without a second thought.
The maid who only wished to be known as Ika, 35, had been living with Prof Dr Catherine Yule, in her 50s, a professor at a private university in the Klang Valley, for five years at Taman TAR, near here.
She often accompanies Dr Catherine and her two dogs on hikes up the Bukit Belacan hill located just behind their house.
Terror struck on Sept 9 at about 3pm.
“It happened so quickly. The naked man ran up to my ma'am (Dr Catherine) before he pounced on her and both of them fell into a ditch.
“He punched her head and face. I grabbed a fallen bamboo stick and hit his back.
“The impact caused the stick to snap into half and he winced in pain. He became furious and turned to attack me,” Ika said yesterday.
Despite the pain and disorientation, Dr Catherine climbed out of the ditch, only to see the man had thrown Ika into a 1m-deep hole just a couple of metres away and was hitting her.
“I saw the man pick up a rock and hit Ika's head with it. But, she put up a brave fight and that was when my maid's handphone slipped out of her pocket and the man grabbed it before running away,” she said.
The ordeal, which lasted about five minutes, left Dr Catherine bruised, with scratches on her leg and arms as well as a black left eye.
“I am not too bad, Ika suffered worse as she had stitches for a cut at the back of her head, multiple cuts and bruises on her legs, hands and head,” said the Australian who has been living in Malaysia for 15 years and can speak fluent Bahasa Malaysia.
“I owe it to her for rescuing me and am very thankful that nothing worse happened,” she said.
Dr Catherine said she had been hiking in the area since three years ago and no untoward incident had taken place in the area before.
“I actually met the man on two separate occasions during my hike just a couple of days before the attack. He looked like a decent man who did not speak much but was quite friendly with my dogs,” Dr Catherine noted.
The attack shocked the regular hikers in the area and they hoped police would nab the suspect in his 30s soon.
A police spokesman said they were investigating the case.
