ROMULUS, Mich. – A gas station clerk in Romulus was nearly killed in a brutal beating, but she’s alive to tell her story because of her quick thinking.
Katie Wood was working a midnight shift when a man she said she’d never seen before came in several times around 4 a.m. Tuesday morning. She now believes he was casing out the place. She was taking a quick smoke break when he came back.
The man grabbed firewood stacked by the door and started beating her with it.
“I thought I was going to die. It was the scariest feeling in the world,” Wood said.
She managed to get back inside, but he followed her. She said he asked for money but didn’t want it. She said he told her he was going to kill her.
The man found a hammer and kept swinging it, hitting her.
“There was blood splattered all over the ceiling, the walls, everywhere, he hit me in the head with the hammer so many times,” Wood said.
When her attacker wasn’t looking Wood turned around, picked up a phone and called 911. The attack continued. He started taking her to the back of the store, toward the dumpster outside.
She was able escape him and lock herself in the bathroom.
“I just sat against the door and held my head and tried to stop the bleeding, because I was bleeding so bad my shirt, everything, was soaked with blood,” she said.
He didn’t leave the scene -- but the phone sitting on the counter led police to the gas station.
“I stayed in the bathroom until I made sure it was safe to come out,” Wood said.
Romulus police said the attack was random.
The suspect was arrested at the scene.