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Elizabeth (Betty) O’Loughlin thought she was going to die after a man knocked her to the ground and began stabbing her repeatedly.
The 78-year-old London woman was taking Kilo, her 14-year-old pug, for an early morning walk on Monday outside her Brydges Street apartment when she was attacked.
“I thought he was going to kill me. I thought I was a goner,” the feisty senior said Wednesday at the spot where she was stabbed two days earlier.
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O’Loughlin was wearing the same puffer jacket she had on when a man she didn’t know stabbed her six times and fled west on Brydges Street.
Jordan Dockstater, O’Loughlin’s granddaughter, believes the winter jacket protected the woman she calls nanny.
“I keep saying that this saved her life, this coat,” Dockstater said, putting her fingers in the small holes left from the attack.
One of the stab wounds was just millimetres from her large intestine, Dockstater said, adding police seized a small paring knife from the scene.
O’Loughlin was treated at Victoria Hospital, where doctors stapled her wounds and told her she was lucky to be alive.
After the attack, O’Loughlin was able to walk back to her apartment building and ask a neighbor to call 911.
Emergency crews responded Monday around 6:30 a.m.
An initial search for the suspect came up empty, but officers arrested a man at his home around 11 a.m., police said.
Cristepher Young-Hough, 32, is charged with aggravated assault, failing to comply with a release order and breaching probation.
Chantal Meadows, who is married to O’Loughlin’s grandson and lives in the same Brydges Street building, was canvassing the neighbourhood looking for businesses with surveillance photos after the attack when she came across tactical officers arresting a suspect on Childers Street.
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“They walked up to his house and arrested him,” said Meadows, who snapped a photo of the handcuffed man being led away.
Court documents show Young-Hough lives on Childers Street, about four blocks from the scene of the stabbing.
Dockstater questions why her grandmother’s alleged attacker wasn’t charged with attempted murder.
Young-Hough already is facing weapons charges from two previous cases and is under court orders not to possess any, court documents show.
In separate cases from Feb. 25 and July 6, he is charged with possession of a weapon – a sharp object – failing to comply with a release order and breaching probation, the documents say.
In the most recent case, he spent four days in custody before he was granted bail. Young-Hough was ordered to enroll in a bail supervision program, not to contact or go near four people, stay away from a city mall and elementary school and not possess any weapons.
O’Loughlin’s family is upset the man accused of attacking her was out on bail while facing prior charges for possessing weapons and breaking his bail and release conditions.
The family is hoping Young-Hough, who returns to court Friday, won’t be freed on bail again.
And they’re no longer allowing O’Loughlin to walk her dog, or venture to the nearby variety store, alone.
“I’m OK,” she said when asked how she’s feeling. “Not bad. Just a little shaky.”
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