Woman warning others after being attacked in her own truck

The incident didn’t last for more than a couple minutes, but it’s something that will likely stay with Chandell Cain for years.

It happened in mid-January. Cain didn’t have to get to class until a little later that Thursday so her husband and daughter left their home in the Cathedral area without her.

Just any normal day, Cain got ready for her day, used the command-start to warm up her truck a bit in the cold morning air, and prepared to head out.

But this wasn’t going to be like any other normal day.

Cain walked out and when she opened the drivers’ door to her truck, noticed papers and other detritus strewn about the truck. It had been broken into and rifled through before, so it wasn’t completely out of the ordinary.

She hopped in, sat down, and when she was about to close the door she realized something wasn’t right – she saw out of the corner of her eye that there was someone in the back seat.

Cain said she panicked.

“And he grabbed me by the ponytail and reefed my head back and hit me with something in the (side of the head).”

She’s not sure what it was that hit her, though she says it seemed like a frozen pop can. A little over a week after the attack Cain said her neck and shoulder still hurt.

Cain screamed and she said at that the man took off out the passenger door.

Cain spoke to the police later that day and made a report, then officers came to her house to look around and ask her a few more questions.

The Regina Police Service confirmed it received a report of an attack, and officers were investigating.

Later Cain found the attacker had taken $6 in change, the registration for her truck and camper, and a hunting knife that had been in the truck.

She says she doesn’t know how he got into the truck because it was locked – it needs to be locked for the command-start to work.

Cain said the incident was terrifying and traumatizing.

“I had no fear of walking down my alley at night, but it’s taken that away from me.”

Cain is going to have to go back to her class because she didn’t pass her final – she said her head was somewhere else.

Cain was generous in her later assessment of the situation, saying that maybe she startled the man, but that didn’t excuse the violence.

“If he’d just gotten out of my car and not assaulted me then things would have been different.”

Now she’s warning people to be more aware of their surroundings, saying she’d “learned her lesson.”