‘I got beaten’: Victim of CTrain attack speaks out

A woman is speaking out after an attack on a CTrain platform left her badly bruised. The accused had recently been let out of prison for killing her own mother.

Warning: Graphic content

Sandra Steffens was waiting at the Crowfoot LRT Station on May 15 when she was attacked by a woman.

“I got beaten. I was sitting there trying to get on a train, and I got beaten the s--- out of me,” Steffens told CTV News.

Around 7:30 p.m., Steffens was waiting for her Tuscany-bound train when a woman started running towards her and yelling.

“(She yelled) ‘Give me your bag’ and then I’m like ‘I’m not giving you my bag,’ and she just started beating me.’”

Steffens was then hit in the face, thrown to the ground and kicked multiple times.

“She just kept on hitting me and hitting me and I don’t know who saved me because I lost consciousness,” she said.

She woke up in the emergency room with broken ribs and a concussion. Steffens spent eight days in hospital and she will need facial reconstruction surgery.

“Eleven days later and I can’t even go back to work. It’s not right,” Steffens said.

Calgary Police have charged 34-year-old Brittany Jewel Mahingen in connection with the incident.

It’s not Mahingen’s first brush with police or the courts. The accused was previously charged with aggravated assault after an incident at the Lions Park CTrain station in 2023.

And in 2012, Mahingen was convicted for killing her mother in what the courts called a “vicious beating.”

Steffens wants more done to protect riders who use the transit service.

“I don’t think that there is enough security,” she said, adding she’d like to see the stations cleaned up so they are environmentally safe all those that use them.

She also advises riders to be ready when they are riding the CTrain or waiting for their train.

“These children, teenagers that are on their phones and they have their earbuds in. (They should) be aware of your surroundings because your surroundings, you never know,” Steffens said.

In response to the incident at the Crowfoot Station, Ward 1 Councillor Kim Tyers says her office is frequently contacted by residents regarding transit safety.

“Despite the City investing millions of dollars into safety initiatives over the past few years, we have yet to see meaningful impacts from that spending,” Tyers said in a statement.

“We must explore new solutions instead of repeating the same strategies and hoping for a different result.”