Family and friends of a 52-year-old grandmother who sustained a broken hip and other injuries in a violent purse-snatching in Waikiki are gathering at Straub Clinic & Hospital, hoping that Jullie Stephenson comes out of the coma she’s been in for more than a week.

Doctors placed Stephenson in a coma Feb. 4 after learning she had internal bleeding from the assault just outside her apartment building. On Sunday, when doctors attempted to wake her, she remained comatose, family members said.

Police said Stephenson was attacked at about 9:20 p.m. Feb. 2 in the driveway of the Tradewinds apartments, 1720 Ala Moana Blvd., across the street from a Red Lobster restaurant.

A male approaching from behind grabbed Stephenson’s purse, shoved her to the ground and fled to a vehicle, leaving Stephenson with multiple injuries, police said.

Chad Johnson, Stephenson’s nephew, said the attacker shoved his aunt so hard that she broke her right hip and started bleeding internally in her abdomen. She was also left with a lump — about the width of a baseball and protruding about half an inch — above her forehead, a bruised right eye and a split lip.

She couldn’t get up and a passer-by called police.

A day after the attack, Johnson, 26, of Oahu, visited his aunt at Straub. She was conscious and eager to talk with police, he said.

At that time, he said, doctors didn’t know she was bleeding internally, and the family expected her to recover.

"She was really upset that someone could do that to her," Johnson said. "She just felt violated."

Stephenson told him that she didn’t see much during the attack.

"She felt a violent shove, and at the same time she felt her other shoulder slip back," he said. "She remembered seeing the ground. She didn’t have time to get her hands up."

Now, he said, "She’s fighting for her life." Stephenson is on a ventilator, has had her hip replaced and has had 20 blood transfusions.

Johnson noted that Stephenson recalled seeing a parked, dark four-door car and possibly heard a car take off.

Born on Oahu, Stephenson is a Kaiser High School graduate. She enjoys sailing and visiting the beach with friends, and had been planning to move to Oklahoma to be near her three children and four grandchildren next month, said her middle daughter, Jennifer Feathers.

Every holiday, Feathers said, Stephenson dotes on the grandchildren, sending them boxes of their favorite foods.

"Her grandkids were way above her kids," Feathers, 31, said. "Every time she called, she would say, ‘Let me talk to my babies.’"

Feathers, who arrived from Oklahoma last week, said her mother is the rock of the family, the one everyone counts on and the one who remembers everyone’s birthday.

Stephenson has a calender filled with the birthdays of everyone she knows. Just about every day she calls someone to wish them a happybirthday, Feathers said.

"I just feel really bad for her, that somebody could do this to her, and it just breaks my heart," Feathers said. "She’s always been such a strong woman. She just looks so fragile now."

Since arriving at the hospital, Stephenson has been receiving a stream of well-wishers, including friends who haven’t seen her for 25 years, co-workers and customers from her workplace. Stephenson has been a bartender at an Assaggio restaurant for 12 years and a sales rep for Paradise Beverages for nine years.

On Thursday morning Feathers had a tiny moment of hope when her mother briefly opened her eyes. She couldn’t tell whether her mother could recognize her. Stephenson’s doctors say she is still in a coma.

"This is a step forward in the right direction, I’m hoping," Feathers said. "It’s the first big thing she’s done since I’ve been here."

At the time of the attack, Stephenson, who was returning from work, was approaching her building where she’s lived and felt safe for 12 years, family said. Residents who also felt safe are now on edge, especially after hearing of similar incidents.

Jean Pendleton, who lives on Stephenson’s floor, heard of two other purse-snatchings in the area. Now she won’t walk with a purse on the street and plans to carry mace. She said police should step up patrols.

"I feel really nervous," she said.

A police spokeswoman said police are investigating three cases of stolen purses in the area in recent weeks, but only Stephenson’s case is a robbery because she was injured.

In one case a man snatched a purse from a woman walking on Ala Wai Boulevard. In the other a man grabbed an unattended purse at a nearby McDonald’s. Both cases have been classified as theft.

All three incidents involved female victims and a male assailant getting into a waiting vehicle, but police don’t know whether the cases are related, the spokeswoman said. Police asked anyone with information on Stephenson’s case to call Crime-Stoppers at 955-8300.

Feathers called the assailant a coward.

"If he had just asked my mom for some money, she would have given him what she had," she said.

Donations for Stephenson’s recovery can be made to www.gofundme.com/ 6vfn00.