A teenager suffered a fractured skull and brain bleed after being bodyslammed during a fight at the popular Knight Library club near the University of Central Florida campus last week, according to her family’s attorney.
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Olivia Nogueras, 19, of Orlando, was at the club with her girlfriend Friday night when an altercation broke out between other people. She wasn’t initially involved but punched one of two men who were fighting after he punched her, she said in a video about the incident. Then a man slammed her to the floor.
“Besides all that mishap, I’m just blessed to be here today. I’m thankful for the people I have with me,” she said in her video.
Mark NeJame, her family’s attorney, said Nogueras spent 3 days in the ICU and was released Monday night.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday it was investigating the incident and that no arrests had been made.
Knight Library posted on Instagram Monday that it had given all its video footage to the sheriff’s office and asked community members to contact the club with any other footage of the incident to “help us catch this scumbag.”
Nogueras had been attending Warner College, a private school in Polk County, on a softball scholarship before she suffered a serious softball-related head injury last October, NeJame said. That caused a seizure, left her unable to walk and caused her to miss the spring semester, he said.
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She initially needed to use a wheelchair, he said, but with of physical therapy was able to walk, first with a cane and then without. She was supposed to resume her studies at Valencia College soon but now likely cannot, NeJame said.
“It’s just so sad because she was a star athlete…she was doing physical therapy twice a week and had progressed significantly,” NeJame said, “was walking and going out and all that on her own like a normal 19-year-old. Then this horrific thing happened to her…it’s going to be a long road for her.”
It is unclear how much Nogueras’ new head injury has exacerbated her old one. She is having chronic headaches, is sensitive to light and likely will not be able to driver on her own for several months until she is declared seizure free, NeJame said.
Video of Nogueras appearing to have a seizure while lying on the club’s dancefloor, surrounded by an onlooking crowd, has circulated widely on social media. Some have reposted it in the hopes of identifying the man who attacked her, who is said to be briefly visible in the footage.
A phone number listed for the club on its Instagram was disconnected when a reporter tried to call it Tuesday.
NeJame says his firm will be looking into accusations posted online about Knight Library that suggest there is a lack of security at the club. “By every account, this should not have ever happened,” he added.
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