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Jonah Franke-Bowell/Stuff
Xun Zeng’s regular evening riverside walk was interrupted by a violent attack on Wednesday. She and partner, Arnav Gogia, are pictured near where it happened.
An attacker who “jumped out of a bush” in an alleged hate crime has left a Hamilton woman with a concussion and broken bones.
Xun Zeng, who is of Chinese descent, said she strolls the river path most evenings but was ambushed on Wednesday evening by a woman who hurled dirt at her and said words to the effect of “go back to your country”.
It was about 7pm when the woman “jumped out of a bush” and threw dirt, then Zeng was “kicked in the back, and punched and kicked for 10 to 15 seconds”, her partner Arnav Gogia said.
The woman took off towards the city centre, Gogia said, and Zeng waited eight-and-a-half hours at Waikato Hospital’s emergency department with a fractured cheek bone, broken nose and a concussion.
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Fortunately, Zeng – an IT professional – had been attended to by a “retired helicopter medic” on the scene, her thankful partner said.
When Gogia arrived “she was bleeding from her eyes and nose, from her face. She was just holding me”.
Gogia says that the ordeal was exacerbated by long waits for both an initial police response and to receive care at the city’s public hospital.
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Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon talks to Radio Tarana’s Vandhna Bhan about the launch of the “Racism Is No Joke” campaign. (First published July 2020)
“This has been very horrific. Just to put it in a plain word. We were on the call for quite a long time. I’m pretty sure it was more than 12 minutes before someone came… Nobody responded to the event even though it is a hate crime,” Gogia says.
Gogia insisted that the attack was random, unprovoked, and motivated by hate.
“Nobody told her anything or, she didn’t know the person. This was a complete hate crime.”
Zeng recalls the woman saying to her “F..k off” and “Go back to your country – or something like that”.
Jonah Franke-Bowell/Stuff
The tree from behind which Zeng’s alleged attacker appeared, beside a central Hamilton river path.
After arriving at the crowed city hospital, Gogia recalls he asked for an icepack to make his partner’s swelling more comfortable.
“I was told by the receptionist, ‘I’m just the reception, talk to the nurse.’ The nurse was right next to her so it was so unhelpful. After saying a few times, they can see my frustration, the nurse just turned around and said: ‘we don’t have icepack. We don’t do that.’ I was just in complete shock.”
Asked to return to the “queue”, Gogia and his partner left for an urgent care clinic in the city centre where care was received quickly, although they were referred back to the public hospital for further scans.
“Once we got back to the hospital we just had to wait… After eight-and-a-half hours, we were seen at 4.30am. I kept going to the nurse asking them to see her. They didn’t put enough notes in the case. They thought it was just an eye injury. I said ‘no!’ There are multiple injuries, you have to re-evaluate.
“I even spoke to the nurse in charge as well, just got no word to be honest.”
A police spokesperson said they received a report of an assault on Hamilton Parade about 7.10pm.
One person received injuries and was treated at hospital, police said.
Police are in the initial phase of an investigation and inquiries are ongoing.
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