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Woman looks for the man who saved her during attack at light rail station

Chapelle Brown needed 18 staples to repair a cut on her head, had surgery to repair her broken finger and suffered a severe concussion when a man randomly attacked her at the Yale light rail station last week.

DENVER — The conversation Chapelle Brown had on her cell phone before she got off the light rail train last week is ominous now.

Brown was talking to her boyfriend about her recent open enrollment period in health insurance at work.

“I said I’m going to leave you a little something in case something happens to me,” she recalls kidding about. “He said nothing’s going to happen to you.”

Moments later, Brown got off the train at the Yale station to start her trek home from work. She headed down the stairs leading to the bus shelter.

RELATED: Suspect in custody after police say he attacked woman with ax-like weapon at Yale light rail station

“I heard someone rushing behind me, and just instinctively I moved over to the right because I wasn’t going to be in their way and when I got to the bottom of the steps, that’s when he started hitting me,” she said.

A man was attacking her with what seemed to be a hammer, hitting her in the back of her head.

“I’m like struggling and fighting him and he’s continually making some noise and hitting me with it and I see blood start pouring out and I’m screaming,” she recalls.

WATCH: Our full interview with Chapelle

She doesn’t recall her attacker saying anything while he was hitting her. She said she tried to move away, but the man held on to her as he was hitting her.

After a few moments, a man rushed over to help her from a nearby bus shelter.

“He just yelled at the guy and the guy backed up and I know that I had my head bent over a little bit and I was holding it and the guy, when I looked over, had his hands up,” Brown recalls.

She said the attacker told the man Brown had his money.

“I’d never seen him before,” she said.

Then, Brown recalls, the attacker ran up the stairs and hopped on a train. The man who had scared him away called 911.

“When I sat down he gave me his glove to hold against my head because it was bleeding so much,” Brown said. “I just told him thank you for saving my life and I just kept saying that.”

Credit: Tom Cole/KUSA
Chapelle Brown had to have surgery to repair a broken finger, has 18 staples in her head, and a concussion following a random hammer attack at a light rail station in Denver.

Paramedics would later take Brown to Swedish Medical Center, where she was evaluated for a concussion.

The ax-like tool she was hit with created a large cut on her head, which required 18 staples and several stitches.

It also cut her right index finger and broke the bone. Brown had surgery on her hand on Tuesday.

“I might not remember the whole thing but I remember the initial hits and that’s almost what keeps me awake,” she said.

Credit: 9NEWS

Denver Police arrested the man they say attacked her at a nearby light rail station. James Galloway, 58, faces a first-degree assault charge for the Jan. 29 attack and remains in jail on $50,000 bond.

Galloway had previously spent time in the Colorado Department of Corrections on a second-degree attempted murder charge.

Credit: Colorado Department of Corrections

"They say people are rehabilitated in jail but you want that to be an actual thing," Brown said. “Whatever help he needs, I hope that he gets."

Brown is focused on finding the man who helped her that night.

“I remember him flying around the corner and I feel like that was nothing but God sending him to interrupt,” she said.

“It was shock and I think you have to get away, you don’t want to die because I have kids at home.”

All she remembers is the man had a black and yellow hat on and was wearing a wedding ring.

“There’s so many people who just walk by when things are happening or just observe from afar and they hear something and they’re just like 'oh…whatever,'” Brown said. “But he came in and the fact that he’s married means he has someone waiting for him just like I did.”

If you or someone you know helped Chapelle Brown that night, please e-mail steve@9news.com. She would like to meet the man who she said saved her life.

“I’m not a hugger, let’s just put that out there,” she said. “But I would actually hug him.”

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