A young woman feared she might die after a cowardly assailant smashed her head against the wall of a dark alleyway.

Eliza Eastland was walking back to her Folkestone home when she sensed someone was following her, so she ran towards a lone street light in the narrow pathway between Dudley Road and Penfold Road.

The next thing the 21-year-old knew, her attacker came from behind and crashed her skull against a wall before running away.

"I felt like I was being followed so I started running down an alleyway," she said of the horrifying assault.

"I got to the nearest lamppost in the middle of the alleyway. I'd stopped, turned around to see if anyone was following me - there wasn't.

"I walked about three more seconds forward and then my head was smashed against a wall, and the last thing I remember is looking up and seeing someone running away."

Disorientated by the violent blow to the head, former engineering student Eliza staggered towards the main road in the hope someone would help, while other passers-by simply walked on without coming to her aid.

"My head felt really warm and I wondered why; why did it feel warm?" she recalled.

"I got into the light and there was blood all over my face. I put my hand up to my head and I could feel my skull.

"That's when I started to panic. I kept rehearsing my name and my date of birth in my head so that if I found anyone I could tell them who I was so that they could get help if I passed out."

Eventually a woman, who she believes was called Stephanie, came to Eliza's aid after hearing her cries for help, and used her socks to try to stem the bleeding.

Police arrived at the scene, but calls to the ambulance service were met with a three-hour wait time, so Eliza's family ended up driving her to the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.

There she was eventually given stitches to the head wound and had to have x-rays to establish whether or not her cheek had been fractured.

She has now expressed her contempt for the person who attacked her that night.

"If you have to do that behind someone's back, so they can't see in the dark, you're a coward," she said.

"If you can't take someone on to their face, if you can't actually look at the person while you're doing it, you're a coward."

A police spokesman said: "Kent Police was contacted at 7.35pm on October 27 after a woman was assaulted in Folkestone.

"It was reported that the victim was in an alleyway off of Dudley Road when she was pushed from behind and fell into a wall, sustaining injuries.

"Officers attended the scene and have since carried out door-to-door enquiries in the area, as well as a review of local CCTV."