Model attacked on Metra train speaks about terrifying encounter

BARTLETT, Ill. (WLS) -- A woman who was violently attacked on a Metra train is speaking out for the first time about the terrifying encounter.

Riders united, working together to hold down an irate woman who witnesses said was spitting, violently unleashing an unprovoked attack on Danielle, a young model from west suburban Bartlett.

"She just, like, let out this blood-curdling scream and then started hitting my head against the window and things just kind of got fuzzy," said Danielle, who did not want to share her last name.

Danielle never saw her attacker coming. She was on the phone with her mother at the time.

"And then all of a sudden chaos erupted, and my poor mother was on the phone," she said. She was taken to the hospital to be treated for a concussion.

"If people hadn't stepped in she probably would have died," said Jon Leonard, who witnessed the attack.

Leonard joined nearly a dozen other Metra riders who stepped in to stop Denisse Nolasco. Nolasco is facing numerous charges, including battery.

"You ride the train, you hear all the horrible things in the news, you wonder what you would do, you wonder what people would do to help you. If they would help. And they helped. I think they saved her life," Leonard said.

"I got really lucky and blessed that so many people were there to help out," Danielle said. She is grateful to those strangers she rode with Tuesday afternoon.

"It would have been so easy for those people to just not get involved out fear that they would have ended up getting hurt," she said.

Danielle's family believes her alleged attacker suffers from mental illness. She said she bears no ill-will towards her and just wants her to get help. She also said she will never ride the train again.