Fitness model and former Olympic volleyball player Kim Glass was the victim of a seemingly random, brutal physical attack on Friday in Los Angeles.
Glass took to her Instagram, revealing the grisly injuries she received as a result of a metal object being hurled at her face as she exited a lunch with a friend. The object, believed by Glass to be either section of pipe or a large bolt, left multiple bones in her face fractured and her right eye swollen shut.
“Yesterday I was in downtown LA and I had a lunch. As I was leaving lunch, I was outside saying goodbye and this homeless man ran up,” Glass explained via her Instagram stories on Saturday after the attack, noting that he had some object in his hand at the time.
“He just like looked at me with some pretty hateful eyes,” she explained. “As I turned to tell my friend ‘I think something’s wrong with him and I think he’s going to hit the car,’ before I knew it, a big metal bolt, like pipe, hit me. It just happened so fast. He literally flung it from the street, he was not even close to me at all.”
Thankfully, a passerby grabbed the man, identified now as 51-year-old Semeon Tesfamariam via ESPN, and held him on the ground until police could apprehend him and an ambulance could give Glass medical attention.
Glass earned a silver medal in volleyball in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and currently works as a coach, trainer, model, and social media fitness influencer.
Glass said that though her eye injury appears dramatic, doctors believe that her vision should be unaffected as she heals. She reports several fractures to her facial bones and had to receive stitches for a gash sustained over her eye.
“I have amazing friends and family around me, and supporting me, and that has been the best part,” Glass continued. “Guys, just be safe out there. Keep your head on a swivel and off your phones. I wasn’t [on the phone] but I still wasn’t ready for it. There [are] a lot of mentally ill people on these streets right now. You shouldn’t have to be fearful when you walk, but it’s true.”