CHICAGO — A woman was critically injured when she was attacked early Thursday near DePaul University’s Lincoln Park campus.

The 22-year-old woman was rushed to Illinois Masonic Medical Center around 4 a.m. in critical condition, but she has since been stabilized.

Based on the scene near DePaul University, where she recently graduated, she had lost a lot of blood.

Police have since determined this may have been a sexually motivated attack where the woman fought back, which likely saved her life.

Area North detectives spent much of the morning investigating a block-long stretch of Halsted near Fullerton, just steps away from the DePaul campus.

Police got the call at around 3:45 a.m. to check on the well-being of a person down on the street.

Officers arrived to find the woman bleeding from the neck area. She had lacerations to the neck and face.  Her purse was found on the sidewalk, not far from an apparent trail of blood.

People who live and work in this neighborhood are surprised by such an incident.

“I think that’s very scary and I can’t believe that happened on this corner,” Jasmine Jones, works in Lincoln Park, said.

Police said the attack itself was not recorded on surveillance cameras in the area, but cameras did capture a man in a car making an illegal U-turn to get to the woman. They have not yet released a description of that vehicle or the suspect.

The woman graduated from DePaul just last month with a degree in anthropology.

The attack has other students on high alert. “It just seems like it’s getting more and more dangerous,” Ryan Brennan, Lincoln Park resident, said. “I hear a lot of girls who are afraid to walk home at night.” The attack took place right across DePaul’s School of Music, which has several cameras mounted on the building. Police said the attack itself was not caught on camera, but they do have surveillance video of a man in a car making an illegal U-turn to get to the woman. Police has not released a description of the car they are looking for or the suspect.