Two weeks ago, on a typically crowded street in broad daylight, Nursing and Wharton senior Christina Zhang came face to face with two strangers.
But only for a moment. Without hint or warning, one of the strangers held up an aerosol can and sprayed a chemical on Zhang’s face, leaving her with an intense, burning sensation on her skin for five hours.
Zhang said she was attacked Jan. 21 by two black teenage girls near the Broad Street Health Center, located at 1415 N. Broad St., where Zhang was placed for her clinical rotation.
After she was discharged from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where she was taken for further treatment after the attack, Zhang said the swelling in her face went away after two days. What remained, however, was her dissatisfaction with the way the Philadelphia Police, the School of Nursing and the University handled the incident.
Zhang said while at HUP, personnel from Victim Services and Penn Police, sent by the Nursing School and the Division of Public Safety, respectively, took her statement.
She expressed beliefs that she may have been the victim of a race-related attack.
“My professor informed me that I may have been targeted because I was Asian,” she said, referring to the attack on 26 Asian students by several black students at South Philadelphia High School in December. The clinic Zhang worked at was a block away from William Penn High School, which has a predominantly black population.
“We have no reason to believe that Christina’s attack and the South Philly High incident are connected,” said Divison of Public Safety Director of Special Services Patricia Brennan, who visited Zhang in the emergency room. “We’re geographically removed from these locations.”
Nursing Assistant Dean for Academic and Student Affairs Christina Clark said all clinical locations are reviewed for safety by Penn Police before students are assigned to them, and Brennan pointed out the clinic where Zhang worked was “well-populated"
In response to Zhang’s having to travel relatively long distances alone, Clark said students have access to PhillyCarShare “when appropriate.”
“The Philadelphia Police arrived at the clinic half an hour after I left for HUP — it’s unacceptable that they had such a slow response time,” said Zhang, who added that the police have not contacted her since the incident.
She was also “disappointed” that the Nursing School and the University “had not done more to address the issue.”
“No alert was sent out to the student body regarding this attack,” Zhang said. “I was also informed about the racial tension after the attack had already occurred.”
“I was unknowingly putting myself in danger all this time,” she added.
Brennan clarified that Penn alerts are only sent out if an incident took place on Penn grounds, or if “there was reason to believe it would affect the Penn community.”
Despite her discontent, Zhang, who has been reassigned to HUP for her clinical rotations, acknowledged that the situation could have been “much worse,” given she was alone and the street was almost empty at the time of her attack.
“I just hope that my story gets out so that students will be aware of the situation outside Penn grounds,” she said.
Corrections & Clarifications: the print version of this article quotes Divison of Public Safety Director of Special Services Patricia Brennan as saying that the attack occurred near Drexel University. The incident in question occurred near Temple University.
