Powerlifter shares pictures of swollen knuckles after punching man who sexually assaulted her

'Hopefully it encourages more women to feel comfortable and able to stand up for themselves'

Leanna Carr (Instagram)

A powerlifter has gone viral for sharing pictures of her swollen knuckles after she punched the man who sexually assaulted her in the street.

Leanna Carr, from Fort Collins, Colorado, was travelling in Dublin when she was assaulted by a man.

“While walking down the street in Dublin earlier this week, a man grabbed my butt,” she wrote on Twitter.

“He proceeded to laugh hysterically and said ‘you’re an American, you probably liked it’. Apparently traveling solo has made me a better person bc my first reaction was to punch him in the face.”

Carr, 26, was hurrying to catch a bus near Aston Quay when the assault happened.

For many women, being sexually assaulted is an incredibly uncomfortable experience which leaves you feeling confused, violated and vulnerable - we often think we’ll give our assailant a piece of our mind, but when it happens, we find ourselves suddenly voiceless.

This wasn’t the case for Carr though, and even she was surprised by her reaction: “I am never a violent person, and I have never punched anyone before... but I became so angry and had so much adrenaline that my reaction was to punch him. I got him on the cheek bone, hard,” she told The Irish Independent.

“I started yelling a couple more things to him like ‘don’t ever touch a girl like that again, I could get you arrested’. He became very mad and I thought he was going to hit back.

“But there was an older couple next to us who saw the whole thing and the gentleman told the scumbag to keep walking. The man started laughing again and then crossed the street to disappear in the crowd of people.”

The powerlifter admits that she may not have felt so confident had the attack have happened in a quiet, dark alleyway, but in the daytime on a busy street, she realised she couldn’t let the man get away with it.

At first, Carr was worried about whether she’d done the right thing, but her tweet has been met with a huge wave of support, with over 24,000 likes.

“I didn’t think expect it to have such a large reach,” she said. “It’s almost all been very positive. A lot of the responses were from women saying that I made the right decision, congratulating me and saying it was well deserved.”

Some people, however, as is often the case, felt the need to comment saying they’d never seen or experienced sexual assault similar to what Carr described, therefore they didn’t believe it could be true.

“Maybe you haven’t seen it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen,” Carr says in response. “No matter what country you’re in. Sexual harassment happens every day from complete strangers and most women do not know the correct way to respond.

“In the past, I probably would have felt too shocked and timid to have dealt with the situation. I probably would have just walked away... and that man probably would have continued to prey on innocent women.

“I never use Twitter and didn’t write the post for attention, but I’m glad it went viral. This is something that is very common and hopefully it encourages more women to feel comfortable and able to stand up for themselves if it does happen to them.”