Sandra Sully has relived the horrifying moment she was ambushed in her apartment car park by a masked man who held a gun to her head and pulled the trigger twice.
Speaking to Stellar, the 10 News First host recalled returning home after a late-night news shift in November 1997.
As she pulled into her Surry Hills apartment complex just after midnight, she was struck with the eerie feeling that she wasn’t alone.
Her instincts were right. As she stepped out of her car, a masked man grabbed her hair, stopping her from escaping.
He then pressed a gun to her temple and pulled the trigger, twice.
Miraculously, the weapon failed to fire.
Sandra Sully (pictured) has relived the horrifying moment she was ambushed in her apartment car park by a masked man who held a gun to her head and pulled the trigger twice.
Speaking to Stellar, the 10 News First host recalled returning home after a late-night news shift in November 1997
‘He had a gun, a balaclava, and handcuffs. So he meant business,’ Sully, 60, told the publication.
When the gun didn’t discharge, the attacker resorted to hitting her in the face with the weapon.
But Sully didn’t stop screaming, something she believes ultimately saved her life.
‘It did save me. I really believe that,’ she said.
‘I found out within a day or two that the people next door had called the police because I didn’t stop screaming despite him pistol-whipping me.’
Eventually, her relentless screams startled the attacker, who suddenly fled, tearing off his balaclava as he disappeared through a grate in the wall.
Sully, in shock, ran to her apartment and banged on the door until her then-husband, Mark Ryan, let her inside.
Despite the trauma, she returned to work just weeks later, admitting she threw herself into her job as a way to cope with the overwhelming fear and vulnerability the attack had left her with.
‘I needed my job because I felt very alone and very vulnerable, and it was the one steady thing in my life that I could rely on, as much as you can rely on being a journalist at a TV network,’ she revealed. (Pictured in 2004)
‘I needed my job because I felt very alone and very vulnerable, and it was the one steady thing in my life that I could rely on, as much as you can rely on being a journalist at a TV network,’ she revealed.
For the next 10 years, Sully lived under tight security, with a team of ex-Federal police officers escorting her home every night and even accompanying her on jogs through Centennial Park.
The attack also took a toll on her personal life, with her marriage breaking down not long after the incident.
Though the horrifying ordeal happened more than 25 years ago, the assailant was never caught, and the case remains unsolved.
Read more in this week’s issue of Stellar Magazine
