Woman Fights Off Attacker
Jul-21-2010

"Fitness gave me the strength to fight off an attacker."

The encounter started like a bad horror flick. It was still dark outside one morning last September when Katy Vander Roest, 24, suddenly woke in her Cincinnati sublevel apartment. "The room felt strange somehow, and I sat up in bed," she recalls. "I put my arms at my sides, and then I felt a gloved hand." Screaming, she looked down to see a man crouching on the floor.

Katy, a student and bartender, wasn't about to be a helpless victim. First she punched the intruder in the face. Hard. Then she jumped out of bed and pinned the would-be rapist, who police estimate was six foot one and 185 pounds, over a low dresser. "I held him down with my left hand and hit him in the face with my right," says Katy, who is five foot eight and 145 pounds. "I was yelling at him to get out, and he was begging for me to stop."

She maneuvered him out of her room, down the hall and through the front door. She literally punched him out of her apartment, an outcome Katy credits to CrossFit, an intense strength-and-conditioning program that is especially popular with police academies and military units. Katy, who had played soccer and basketball and run track as a kid, was introduced to the tough training regimen by her boyfriend; she'd been doing it daily for several months. She loved the challenge and variety of the constantly changing workouts and was putting in up to 12 hours a week at her local CrossFit gym. At the time of the break-in, she had five new pounds of solid muscle to show for her dedication and hard work.

Police arrested the intruder that night; he was eventually convicted and sentenced to five years. "Looking back, I realize how scary it was," Katy says. "Other girls I've talked to say that if the same thing had happened to them, they would've frozen. But I felt as if I were physically ready to fight back, and that made me less afraid. I feel strong on the outside and the inside."

Posted by Clay Kohut at 12:00 AM - Link to this entry  |  Share this entry  |  Print