A nice day of visiting the campus of the University of Texas at Austin turned into one Naperville woman being in the right place at the right time.
Dr. Leona Di Amore was visiting her daughter, a freshman at the college, when a stabbing occurred on campus on Monday, May 1. The chiropractor, former navy medic, and owner of Naperville’s Healing Place, knew she had to help.
“It was as if I was just completely lead to go where I was,” said Di Amore. “I walked outside and the crowd was running, running, running, and I walked along side the building and made sure the scene was safe. I said ‘is anybody hurt? What’s going on? What’s going on?’ And at the end of the parking lot was a kid and he said ‘I’ve been stabbed, I’ve been stabbed!’ So I ran over to him and by then everyone had left. So I ran over to him and said ‘where have you been stabbed?’ Because he had on a red shirt and I could see blood all over… And he had been stabbed [in the] back. He could not see it. And when I looked back there I was very alarmed. The person had used about a ten-inch blade and the slice was all the way across the back of his neck and the bone was exposed.”
Di Amore covered up the victim’s wound until responders got to them, talking to him and keeping him calm through the situation.
Now, just a few days since the incident, Di Amore calls it a miracle to have been there and hopes people help those in need more often.
“Being aware of your environment, being kind to people and helping those in need, and lastly that, miracles happen,” said Di Amore. “This was an absolute miracle that I ran out of a completely safe building because I felt like something could be wrong and I ran into a parking lot where this kid was.”
Di Amore has been in contact with the stabbing victim she helped, and says she hopes to meet him the next time she visits her daughter at school.
“I spoke to him for about an hour the other day. He’s in shock, he’s freaked out, but he is grounded and he’s stable and it’s interesting though because he said ‘that was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. And then I turned around and you were there.’ And he’s like ‘you made me feel safe,’” said Di Amore.
Naperville News 17’s Christine Lena reports.
