The woman who bit her attacker’s hand last week to get away when he tried to rape her spoke out this week, hoping that he can be captured soon.

The victim, whose identity is being withheld to protect her, said she was walking home from work between 9 and 10 p.m. on June 24 when the man on a bicycle approached her in the 300 block of Market Street.

“I had a pretty long day,” said the 23-year-old woman. “I started making my way home.”

The woman said she said hello to the man at first because she speaks to everyone.

“I was raised that you speak to people,” she said.

He started to engage her in conversation, asking how her day had been and if she had a boyfriend.

Even though she replied that she did have a boyfriend, the man soon began asking questions of a sexual nature, she said. She gave noncommittal answers, made the excuse that she was tired and needed to help her family at home, and reminded him she had a boyfriend.

But “he wasn’t getting the point,” she said. “He’s still pushing the issue. Something didn’t seem right.”

At one point, the man dropped his pants to show her his penis, she said.

When she was distracted by a fire truck leaving the nearby station, that’s when the man made his move. He reached for her and tried to pull her off the roadway, with his pants still down.

“I turned to walk off,” she said.

He grabbed her again and tried to pull her into an alley between two buildings.

“I start to scream, because I know exactly what’s going to happen,” she said.

The man grabbed her mouth to muffle the screams and yelled at her to shut up. She tried to reach for the box cutter that she carries for work in her back pocket.

He saw her reaching for something and slammed her against the building. She started to scream again, and he put his hand over her mouth again.

His mistake, that time, was doing so while her mouth was open.

She chomped down on his hand as hard as she could. While he was holding his hand and swearing, she ran from the scene and didn’t stop until she got home. She then went to police headquarters to file a report.

She still is numb from the incident, she said, but every day is a little better.

“It’s still a fresh wound,” she said, adding that friends have been picking her up from work at night since the attack. “It makes me leery just going out during the day.”

She fears the man is going to lay low until he attempts to grab another victim. The next one may not be so lucky, she said.

“Someone needs to hear the story,” she said, adding she believes the police department is trying its best to solve the case.

The suspect is described as a black male in his 40s, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, 120-135 pounds, with a dark complexion and short hair, and perhaps a pencil-thin moustache. Anyone who has information is asked to call Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP. Callers to Crime Line never have to give their names or appear in court, and may be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000.