METRO bus stabbing victim recounts attack with steak knife

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A Houston-area woman is out of the hospital after she was stabbed in the back Thursday night on a METRO bus.

"I've never heard of anything like this happening on a bus," said Becky Ligon. She says she was headed home from work at Texas Children's Hospital around 7 p.m. when another passenger became belligerent. Ligon says the woman was screaming something at passengers and the driver.

"I have no idea. None of it made any sense," she said.

According to Ligon, the driver tried to calm the woman down without success and the woman pulled a knife.

"She came out with a steak knife and started threatening everybody," she said.

Ligon says the driver pulled over and tried to evacuate the bus in the 7000 block of Old Katy Road. Ligon was the last to get off and says the woman stabbed her in the back as she did.

"The handle of the knife broke off and landed on the floor of the bus, so I got off and I'm trying to feel around. I couldn't reach to where it was so I didn't feel anything," she recalled.

With the blade in her back, she scrambled to safety. EMS crews removed the blade, and Ligon was in the hospital only a few hours and received only a few stitches.

She says she's never met or saw the woman before and doesn't hold anything against her. She's just glad to be ok.

"Lucky and blessed that I, you know, am fine," she confided.

Helen Benjamin was arrested at the scene and is now charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

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