Reflecting on her assault 12 years ago, 41-year-old Wanda Gomez said she did not know if she was going to make it out alive. She had been stabbed multiple times by an angry ex-boyfriend, she said.

Her attacker, who was also a co-worker, had been kicked out of her home after he was accused of sexually assaulting Gomez’s school-age daughter. With her assailant at large, authorities advised Gomez, a mother of seven who made $13 an hour as a demolition worker, to leave her home and quit her job out of concerns for her safety.