Former Survior: Fiji contestant Michelle Yi embodied the word survivor after being brutally attacked by a homeless woman in Santa Monica, Calif.
According toPEOPLE, the 37-year-old, who works as a pilates instructor, had just arrived at the studio ahead of her 6 a.m. class on Thursday, October 15. Yi noticed a homeless woman moving toward the front door, which had been open for her students to arrive.
"She was yelling all sorts of things like, 'You stole my identity' and, 'You're a prostitute,' the former reality star explained to the outlet. "Santa Monica has a homeless problem, and I've dealt with this type of thing before. So I told her, 'Ma'am, you can't be here. You need to leave."
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This is when things to a violent turn when Yi realized the distressed woman came equipped with a knife and a metal baton. "She stabbed me in the left bicep. And then she hit me on the right hand with the baton. My Apple Watch shattered. My face split open. Blood was everywhere," the instructor stated.
As the attacker took off, her students who had witnessed the assault called authorities. Lieutenant Rudy Flores, a spokesman for the Santa Monica Police Department, confirmed that although the homeless woman had tried to flee, "When we arrived, the suspect was still on the scene. The officers took her into custody and interviewed the victims and the witnesses."
In a statement to the outlet, police stated that Yi, who had to have several stitches on her face, was not the only person that the hostile woman had gone after. The woman had allegedly assaulted two other people earlier that day. "It appeared that she was mentally unstable and maybe off her medication. That probably caused her to do what she did," cops said.
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Yi and authorities have not yet identified what the attacker's motives were but are speculating that it may have been racially-driven. "I can't say why she attacked me, of all people. But she was a white lady who attacked three people that morning. Another victim was an elderly Asian man who was walking his dog, and the third was also a person of color. I can't prove whether it was racially motivated or not, but she was screaming all sorts of awful things at me. The facts are what they are," Yi revealed.
Yi, who was featured on the hit CBS show in 2006, noted, "Physically, I'm on the mend. Emotionally, it's harder, but I should be ok."
"It was really awful. It was dark when this happened," Yi concluded. "I hope that police will have more protections during the hours that we need them most."
