Don't shout 'help' or 'rape', people ignore that. Shout 'Fire', it's more likely that people will come and look.

Trouble is, even in broad daylight on a busy street, people will look the other way. Here's a prime example: One Friday lunchtime, I was walking down my street when a young (early 20's) black girl ran out into the road, shouting for help. She was holding her trousers up and had blood on her clothes. The woman unloading her groceries not 5 feet away actually turned her back on the girl and carried on taking stuff from the car.

If you lose control of a situation, then passiveness is likely to get you hurt less. Don't keep all your cash, cheques and cards in the same purse, hand over any cash and you could get away unscathed.
If the attacker is determined to hurt you, then concentrate on collecting evidence; focus on eyes, ears, hands, teeth, so that you can describe them accurately. Try to pull some hair out or scratch deeply enough to draw blood in a visible place like the face or hands. A finger in the eyesocket will put most people off their stroke and is more likely to cause pain than a knee in the squidgy bits. Unless you are braced against something and can really drive your knee up, then all you'll do with a knee in the goolies is unbalance yourself and end up on your ass on the floor.

There have been other threads with some good information and advice in, but I'm at a loss as to where it would be.

LTS



(I stopped and helped, thinking the girl had been raped. She was OK but her boyfriend had slashed his wrists and she was screaming for help as the ambulance hadn't turned up. I'd walked past the ambulance a few minutes earlier at the top of the road, where the crew were looking at a road map. They took a further 20mins to get to the patient who was a 3 minute walk away, during which I administered 1st aid as best I could. I have to conclude that the other woman just was too busy to help, I hate to think she was being heartless, racist or just plain mean.)