TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – One of the women who was stabbed during a terrifying attack at a Walmart in Traverse City is now home recovering and sharing her story.
She is one of eight victims who have been released from a hospital. Three remain hospitalized.
The suspected attacker was arrested and is facing multiple attempted murder charges. His bond is at $1 million.
The woman, who asked not to be named, had gone to Walmart on July 26 to return an expired patty of frozen plant-based sausage.
“I went in, went to customer service, got $3.83 back for my sausage, turned around and I heard two blood-curdling screams,” she recalled. “Everybody was screaming and I only had 50 feet to get out the door.”
She reached the front door, still unaware of the reason for the screams. Then she was stabbed.
“I thought I got pushed harder than I’ve been pushed in my life. It felt like a truck hit me,” she recalled. And I went straight down. My knees didn’t buckle or anything. I just went straight down.”
Outside on the sidewalk, a woman helped her up. That’s when she noticed blood all over her clothes. She was bleeding profusely and the woman who helped her up used a black T-shirt to try to stop the bleeding.
“She bound it up and she held me and she put that against my side of my back, and she held that.”
Her husband was at home in a wheelchair, so the woman helped call the victim’s daughter.
“I told my daughter, ‘I’d been stabbed and I was at Walmart, to go to your dad, I’m fine, they’re going to bring an ambulance.’”
The phone didn’t disconnect, so her daughter listened in for the next 45 minutes as paramedics treated her and doctors worked on her in the hospital.
“It is a miracle because it relieved her because she could hear, ‘Your vital signs are good.’ She heard everything.”
Police believe Bradford Gille plunged the blade of a 3.5-inch folding knife once into the woman’s upper back, hitting her right lung. Doctors told her scar tissue from a previous surgery likely kept it from collapsing.
She said she never saw her attacker.
She has since learned the attacker has a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, psychotic episodes, and has been in and out of institutions, with periods of homelessness after smoking marijuana laced with something at age 14.
She believes the stabbings illustrate failures in the mental health system.
“I just felt nothing but pity for this boy because he’s never had a chance,” she said. “I know. I really don’t have a message, but I hope you get help and I hope you can live somewhat of a good life.”
Shoppers stopped the attacker and held him until police arrived. The motive is still unknown.