To skateboarders at Grant Park, Zoey Wolfe is known as “Alpha.”
She takes it upon herself to protect her fellow skaters, and friends say she was doing just that when a man stabbed her in the chest last weekend.
Friends rushed to her side, using bandages from a trauma kit she carries with her while others chased after the man.
“There were several people who were working to make sure that this person didn’t get away and then at the same time, there were several people working to make sure that I didn’t die,” Wolfe told the Sun-Times Friday from her hospital bed.
Wolfe, 25, has been going to the Grant Park skate park for about a year and says the people there are like a big family.
Last Friday, she noticed a man making sexually suggestive comments to a teenage girl at the park. Wolfe and others kept an eye on him and the man eventually left.
The same man returned Saturday evening. Wolfe, who said she is trained in de-escalation tactics, and two others decided to say something and the man referred to himself as a “pedophile,” according to Wolfe.
The group told him to leave the park, but he returned with a sharp tool, left and came back with a stop sign, Wolfe said. The third time he returned, he went straight for Wolfe and began making transphobic and homophobic remarks, according to Wolfe, who is a transgender woman.
“Going out, facing the world, every day is hard enough as it is, let alone interacting with individuals who would make such heinous comments,” Wolfe said.
Then “out of nowhere,” the man pulled out what Wolfe believed to be a kitchen knife and stabbed her in the chest. Wolfe began to walk away and realized she was bleeding from the chest.
She shouted for a friend to grab her trauma kit and then passed out. Doctors said her heart had stopped for 15 seconds at the park and for another 5 seconds in the emergency room. Wolfe lost a lot of blood and has undergone surgery and multiple transfusions in the days since the attack.
Six days later, Wolfe took her first steps to the chair in the corner of her hospital room. She is still awaiting neurological testing to address numbness in her legs, but doctors expect her to make a full physical recovery
Wolfe believes the psychological effects of the attack will take longer to recover from. “It is going to be a lifelong recovery,” Wolfe said. “I remember exactly what it sounded like when he stabbed me.”
When police arrived at the scene, fellow skaters pointed officers to the man, who had boarded a bus nearby. The man, Joshua Shaw, was arrested and charged with aggravated battery.
Some of Wolfe’s friends believe the attack should be considered a hate crime, but the state’s attorney’s office has not added to the initial charges.
Friends have also set up a GoFundMe page to help Wolfe pay her medical expenses. As of Friday afternoon, the page had raised just over $500 of its $7000 goal.
“It’s very unfortunate,” Wolfe said. “While I do carry the name Alpha, I am more of a protector. I won’t say, I would have never thought this would have happened to me. But I didn’t go into it with a mindset of, I’m going to physically hurt this person. I just wanted them to be gone from the park.”
