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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.<\/p>\n
Ilysha Perry, 20, remains in Canberra Hospital\u2019s intensive care unit in a serious but stable condition seven days after the attack.<\/p>\n
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Fiona Coffey, mother of\u00a0Ilysha Perry, inset, who remains in Canberra Hospital\u2019s intensive care unit a week after the\u00a0ANU attack. <\/span>Credit: <\/span>AAP\/Facebook<\/cite><\/p>\n Alex Ophel, 24, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder after police alleged he stabbed two women \u2013 Perry and another 20-year-old student, Isabelle Vasudeva \u2013 last Monday afternoon on the university\u2019s Canberra campus and assaulted two men.<\/p>\n Prior to the attack, Perry\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Hours after getting home, she got the call every parent dreads.<\/p>\n \u201cNot my precious baby\u201d was the only thing going through her head after picking up the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cShock, disbelief, we didn\u2019t know whether she was going to survive or not so that was the worst part for me,\u201d she told reporters at Canberra Hospital on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cI just dropped everything, got in the car and drove straight there.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel pretty lucky that she had hung on that long to see me.\u201d<\/p>\n Grateful her daughter was still alive, Coffey said she was \u201cgoing on adrenaline and still numb\u201d and thanked the community and her other five children for their support.<\/p>\n But whether the arts student would make a full recovery was still unknown a week later.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s going to have some serious long-term issues, but hopefully she\u2019ll recover,\u201d Coffey said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut she\u2019ll never be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Perry was described as a private person but the \u201cquietest, loveliest girl you\u2019d ever meet\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re all devastated, but she\u2019s a bit better today, so that\u2019s a good day,\u201d her mother said.<\/p>\n Coffey also had a defiant message for other students.<\/p>\n \u201cANU is a safe place … don\u2019t let fear stop you from reaching your dreams and don\u2019t let that fear change the path that you\u2019re on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cBe brave, be strong, be heroes like Ilysha.\u201d<\/p>\n Ophel has also been charged with two counts of assault and one count of possessing an object to be used to kill.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n It\u2019s alleged he then approached a second male student and struck him with the frying pan.<\/p>\n