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An Australian National University student stabbed in a campus attack is still in intensive care and will never be the same, her mother said in an emotional interview.
Ilysha Perry, 20, remains in Canberra Hospital’s intensive care unit in a serious but stable condition seven days after the attack.
Fiona Coffey, mother of Ilysha Perry, inset, who remains in Canberra Hospital’s intensive care unit a week after the ANU attack. Credit: AAP/Facebook
Alex Ophel, 24, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder after police alleged he stabbed two women – Perry and another 20-year-old student, Isabelle Vasudeva – last Monday afternoon on the university’s Canberra campus and assaulted two men.
Prior to the attack, Perry’s mother Fiona Coffey had spent the weekend in Canberra with her daughter, before driving back to Batemans Bay on the NSW south coast, two hours away.
Hours after getting home, she got the call every parent dreads.
“Not my precious baby” was the only thing going through her head after picking up the phone.
“Shock, disbelief, we didn’t know whether she was going to survive or not so that was the worst part for me,” she told reporters at Canberra Hospital on Monday.
“I just dropped everything, got in the car and drove straight there.
“I feel pretty lucky that she had hung on that long to see me.”
Grateful her daughter was still alive, Coffey said she was “going on adrenaline and still numb” and thanked the community and her other five children for their support.
But whether the arts student would make a full recovery was still unknown a week later.
“She’s going to have some serious long-term issues, but hopefully she’ll recover,” Coffey said.
“But she’ll never be the same.”
Perry was described as a private person but the “quietest, loveliest girl you’d ever meet”.
“We’re all devastated, but she’s a bit better today, so that’s a good day,” her mother said.
Coffey also had a defiant message for other students.
“ANU is a safe place … don’t let fear stop you from reaching your dreams and don’t let that fear change the path that you’re on,” she said.
“Be brave, be strong, be heroes like Ilysha.”
Ophel has also been charged with two counts of assault and one count of possessing an object to be used to kill.
He allegedly hit a male student on the head with a frying pan before the victim fled the scene and then stabbed the first female student and chased the second woman before stabbing her.
It’s alleged he then approached a second male student and struck him with the frying pan.
Ophel will reappear before the ACT Magistrates Court on October 17 after a mental health assessment.
AAP
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