Carver Fleet Farm stabbing victim recounts near-fatal attack | FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul
Expand / Collapse search
☰

Carver Fleet Farm stabbing victim recounts near-fatal attack

By
Updated  February 5, 2025 9:44pm CST
Carver
FOX 9

Fleet Farm stabbing victim speaks on sentence

The same week her attacker was sentenced, Ava Larson is talking about how being stabbed working at Fleet Farm changed her life.

The Brief

    • A Chaska high school senior is reliving the attack that nearly took her life while she worked at a Fleet Farm store last November.
    • One day after her assailant appeared in court, Ava Larson wants to move forward.
    • Gerald Dwayne Hudson, 31, of Kansas, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to the attack.

CARVER, Minn. (FOX 9) - A Carver Fleet Farm employee is speaking out for the first time about her near-fatal stabbing last November.

READ MORE: Kansas man stabbed 17-year-old Fleet farm employee sentenced to 7 years

Kansas man attacks teen employee

What they're saying:

Chaska High School senior Ava Larson was stocking shelves at the Carver Fleet Farm store, when a stranger crept up from behind, and without provocation, stabbed her in the back of neck, before taking off.

"I started screaming, ‘someone call the cops. I just got stabbed in the neck,’" Larson told FOX 9 on Wednesday. "I was scared. But I also knew God was by my side. I did think my head was falling off at first, because he did sever all the muscle from my spinal cord."

"I felt like a sharp pain in the back of my neck, so I reached back there and it was really warm and wet," Larson continued.

Larson, 17, nearly died after losing a lot of blood.

"That is a very scary feeling, not knowing if you’re going to live or not," Larson said. "I was just praying that I wasn’t going to die and that I wasn’t going to be paralyzed. I was screaming."

Larson's road to recovery 

Big picture view:

Larson now goes to physical therapy twice a week, along with visits to a mental health professional. 

She also lives with regular headaches and changes to her vision.

However, the incoming West Virginia University forensic sciences student says she has forgiven her attacker.

"I just pray for him that he finds God. That he can better his life," Larson said.

On Tuesday, 31-year-old Gerald Dwayne Hudson of Kansas pleaded guilty and received a seven-year prison sentence for the attack.

CarverChaskaCrime and Public Safety