A Calgary woman and her family are reeling after a meeting about a possible rental opportunity turns deadly.“We are shattered,” the statement the family released to CTV News reads. “We are walking around like we’re functioning, but it feels like something inside us broke, and we can’t put it back together.”A 30-year-old woman was showing a man, identified as 40-year-old Shahbaz Ahmed, around a home he had indicated he was interested in renting when Ahmed attacked her while the pair were alone in the basement.The woman was able to fight back and escaped to a neighbours' house. In the statement mentioned above, the woman's family went on to express their amazement at her ability to fend off the attacker and save her life.“When she was about to take her last breaths, she did what she had to do to survive and defend herself from this man taking her life. She escaped. She got to safety. She called the police. She did the impossible."The attacker later died from his injuries but police say the woman was well within her rights to act the way she did.In a press conference Tuesday, Acting Staff Sgt. Scott Guterson said that the incident was the most "clear-cut case of self-defence I've seen" and that Ahmed was "known to police."Guterson said that had the woman not acted as quickly as she did, the "situation could have been much, much worse."Despite the woman's survival, her family says that she is left with not only physical scars of the attack but mental ones as well.“When we saw her, it didn’t feel real, as we broke down in tears the reality set in that we almost lost our sweet baby girl. Her face was so swollen and bruised we barely recognized her. Her body was bruised from head to toe. One eye was swollen completely shut and wouldn’t open for days. She suffered broken bones, scratches, the aftermath of a possible concussion and whiplash. Her hair was so matted from the struggle it took over 13 hours and professional help to untangle," the family statement reads. "She is left with injuries we can see and pain we can’t even name.”Despite this brutal incident, the family says that the women should serve as an inspiration to those to keep fighting when all seems lost. "If you’re someone who feels like you don’t have the will to keep going… look at her. She held on. She chose to live, even in the middle of absolute terror. And that’s something I will never stop being in awe of."
