September 5, 2005 City Edition 23

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It was there to muffle the scream that wassure to come. A scream that did come, butwas futile. It was not heard by my then-sleep-ing roommate, my upstairs neighbors—I’mnot even entirely sure that I heard it myself.But what supplemented the scream was muchmore effective.

My left foot, by pure survival instinct, wasfirmly planted in the center of the intruder’sbody. I kicked. Hard enough that he was nolonger standing over me. Hard enough that,as I stood up out of bed, my attacker was afull three or four feet away.

It was only then that my hand reached tomy chest, then, pulled back. My fingers tightaround something foreign. My hand, now infront of me, opened, revealing a knife, slickwith my own blood—blood now spillingfrom a hole in my chest.

With his weapon in my hand and with nodoubt that I would fight back, the man turnedto leave. He ran out of my bedroom andcontinued through the front door. Followingclose behind him, to make sure he left andthe threat of further attack was gone, I lockedthe door, then made my way to the phone.

Dialing the number we all know by heart,I was already thinking about the next step,and for the first time, it occurred to me that Iwas in pain. Cordless phone in hand, I wentto the bathroom, grabbed a towel, placed itover the wound and applied pressure.

Now I was calling out for my roommate,still asleep at the other end of our long apart-ment. When she awoke to my banging onher locked bedroom door, panic washed overher still groggy face. But by then, there was

Muffle the Scream: Part IReviving Victims Rights in Richmond

By Dana Logan

nothing left to do except wait—for the am-bulance, en route, for the doctors to mendmy deep wound, and for some sense to bemade of all this.

The police arrived quickly. Four and ahalf minutes after my phone call. Five min-utes too late to catch the intruder. The shorttrip, from my apartment in the fan to MCV,took longer than you can imagine, but wasmade bearable by two EMTs that reassuredme and even made me smile.

At the trauma center, I was poked andprodded. Ultrasounds. Rape kits. X-rays. Theworks. And still, they couldn’t tell what kindof damage had been done. They needed abetter look.

Not even fully comprehending what thatwould mean, but also not really caring, solong as they fixed me, I signed papers to let

t was three am. July 16. Three years anda month ago. I woke up with a man stand-

ing over my bed; his hand on my mouth.I them open my chest completely. Luckily, how-

ever, by the time I reached the operating room,the doctors had decided to do a laparoscopyfirst. The camera, which they inserted through

a small incision above my bellybutton, showed very little dam-age.

The knife, which had pen-etrated four and a half to fiveinches deep, had missed myheart by a quarter of an inch,snuck by my lungs, and justbarely nicked my liver. With noneed now to open my chest forrepairs, the surgeons irrigatedmy liver to get the blood out,stitched me up, and sent me torecovery.

Recovery. Physically, it wasonly a couple weeks before myskin was replaced with scartissue and my stitches dissi-pated. And while it was, at

times, excruciating, it was nothing comparedto the mental, emotional and psychologicalhealing that would consume me for monthsto come.

…continued next week.

Dana Logan graduated from VCU withdegrees in Religious Studies and Psychology.She is the managing editor of City Edition.

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