Kyli Watts, 24, was walking in North Hollywood about 11:30 a. m. Oct. 10 when 30-year-old Jonathan Cole allegedly rammed the tool with 4-inch blades into the back of her head for no apparent reason, police said.
The LA woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury when a homeless man stabbed her in the head with gardening shears FaceTimed her mom after the brutal attack — and her first words were: “Mom, this is serious, I’ve been stabbed!”
With the shears still embedded in her skull, Watts ran to a nearby restaurant, where she called 911 and FaceTimed her mother, Amy Watts, a psychiatric nurse in North Carolina.
Her mother, Amy Watts, said they’d been a foster family for 15 years, and had experience taking care of people suffering from severe mental illnesses.
“She understands this is a very sick person,” her mother said.
“This is a problem that we as a society have to look at and figure out what’s next,” she said. “Because this is just going to continue to get worse.”
“If this were a person with epilepsy that had not taken their medication and had a seizure at the wheel and hit your child crossing the street, would you really be angry, or do you understand that that’s a person with an illness?” Amy said.
“That’s what we’re dealing with here,” added the longtime foster parent whose family has experience with the severely mentally ill.
Watts underwent surgery for a traumatic brain injury and remains in the hospital. She faces a difficult road to recovery, and will likely face more long-term issues with her balance and vision as a result.
Doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center had to leave a bone fragment in place after the shear shattered her skull because it was very close to a major blood vessel — meaning removing it would have been too dangerous, Amy told the station.
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