Virgin assault victim shows attacker forgiveness

She was hit over the head with an unknown object, but Ms Nerissa Kleynhans and her attacker hugged it out.

April 28, 2017

Mireille de Villiers 1 minute read

Ms Nerissa Kleynhans managed to show her attacker empathy, and she was unfazed to face him when asked by gym management to sit down in a meeting together the following day.

MBOMBELA – A man attacked her at Virgin Active Crossing on the evening of Wednesday April 19 after their children got into a fight. A bystander intervened to push the man away from her.

Kleynhans was issued with a written warning, while both men saw their membership cancelled on account of getting physical with another member.

Read

Man hits woman at gym

https://www.citizen.co.za/lowvelder/384281/man-hits-woman-gym/

“Children fight,” Kleynhans told Lowvelder on Monday. On the night she did not get much farther than uttering, “Our kids had a fight,” to her attacker before he became aggressive and started yelling swear words.

“His whole body language changed. He was so angry,” she recalled. In hindsight she understood that he lost it, that he perhaps wanted to protect his kids and overreacted. She stated unequivocally that there was nothing racial about the incident.

“(The member who intervened) came out of nowhere. This man was yelling at me and hit me on the head. I don’t know with what, but my head hurt for a few days.”

Kleynhans thinks she might have been much worse off if someone had not interfered.

He in turn, said he did not blame the man who intervened, and understood why he did it. “He had tears in his eyes and was truly sorry. When he wanted to shake my hand afterwards, I chose to hug him instead.”

She decided not to open a police case against him. “Imagine if he were arrested over me opening a police case: the trauma it would have caused his family and his kids?

“You don’t fight fire with fire. You have to start caring what’s happening in the world. We are at a pivotal point, where if you don’t know what’s happening and you’re not aware how every choice we make is a cause that creates an effect, then you are part of the problem, not the solution.