GERMANTOWN, Wis. — A 15-year-old girl fought off her mother's attacker and performed life-saving CPR after a brutal stabbing in Germantown three weeks ago.
TMJ4 first reported this story on June 16.
Jasmine Eskildsen woke up to her mother's screams on June 15, a day she would typically have spent with her father up north, but was instead with her mom in Germantown.
"I woke up to my mother screaming in horror, hearing things crashing. I got out of my bed and I ran to see Melvin on top of her, beating her and stabbing her, and I ran to him and I started punching him with all my force and got him off my mother," Eskildsen explained.
The teen identified the attacker as her mother's ex-boyfriend, whom she says her mother hadn't seen or spoken to in more than two years.
"I grabbed a wooden board that was broken from our kitchen and I started repeatedly beating him with it," Eskildsen said. "I got on top of my mother and that's when he stabbed my hand trying to get my mother, and I tried protecting her and I pleaded with him to please leave and he finally left."
After the attacker fled, Eskildsen locked the door and called 911.
WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Germantown 15-year-old stabbed on Father's Day speaks out after saving her mother's life
"You could see like the color draining from her and like she was breathing in blood," Eskildsen added.
The 911 operator instructed Eskildsen to perform CPR, which she says she learned in her first-semester health class. While performing chest compressions, the operator told her that police and paramedics were outside.
"I bolted outside and there was cops and I begged them, and they saw all the blood with me, and I was like please help us my mother's been stabbed," Eskildsen pleaded.
Both Eskildsen and her mother, Erika, were taken to the hospital. Erika underwent emergency surgery for her heart and collapsed lung after being stabbed several times.
"I got to see her later that day, but it was horrifying to see my mother in like kinda a coma-ish with a tube down her throat," Eskildsen said.
Police say the suspect fled the scene and drove his tractor-trailer all the way to Indiana, where police chased him until he drove his truck off an overpass and crashed.
Thirty-nine-year-old Melvin Hinston-Reed has been charged with attempted first degree homicide, with the use of a dangerous weapon, and child abuse with the high probability of great harm, with use of a dangerous weapon.
Erika survived and is now home from the hospital, beginning what her daughter describes as a long road to recovery.
"God gave me those instincts to protect my mother as much as possible, and if I wasn't there then my mother would be dead," Eskildsen said.
The teen is asking for prayers as her mother recovers.
This story was reported on-air by Jenna Rae and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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