A man demanding drugs attacked a pediatrician shortly after 6 a.m. Thursday morning as she entered the Westside Health Care clinic in Franklin, according to the police.

The man grabbed Dr. Kristen Prescott by the scarf, choking her, and asked for drugs, according to Franklin Police Chief Brad Haas. With her assailant holding her by the scarf, she led him into an area with a phone and then fought back, butting her head into his face, according to her husband, Darrell Prescott.

The attacker fled, and she called the police.

No arrests have been made, according to Haas. Prescott was treated at Franklin Regional Hospital and released, according to a spokeswoman there. She has lacerations and bruises on her neck, as well as damage to her larynx and a bump on the back of her head from hitting her attacker, her husband said.

Almost as upsetting as the incident itself is what happened after the assailant fled, Darrell Prescott said. When Franklin police arrived, they sent Kristen Prescott from the building to wait outside in the cold and dark morning for more than half an hour.

“They immediately put her outside and had her sit alone against the wall, never called an ambulance, never asked for a description for him, never even went looking for him,” Darrell Prescott said. Kristen Prescott did not see the man’s face, but could describe his height and clothing, he said.

No one from the Franklin Police Department was available for comment late yesterday afternoon.

But a coworker, Dr. Susan Hare, confirmed that account. Hare said Kristen Prescott didn’t have her car keys – her bag’s contents had been strewn on the floor of the clinic – and didn’t have anywhere to go.

“When I arrived at 7 o’clock, she was outside, huddled outside a newspaper dispensing machine, and the three officers were inside,” Hare said. Hare drove Prescott to the emergency room for treatment, she said.

Hare said that the police officers were “standoffish” and used an “accusatory tone.” They didn’t seem to believe Prescott’s story, Hare said. But as Hare walked through the clinic with them and saw papers scattered and Prescott’s bag thrown on the floor, they seemed to change their minds. Officers kept asking Kristen Prescott why she had let the man into the building, her husband said, not taking into account that she’s a very petite woman and fought as hard as he could.

Kristen Prescott’s dream has been to be a rural doctor, her husband said. She makes it a point never to turn a patient away, he said, so it’s not at all uncharacteristic for her to go into the office at 6 a.m. to catch up on paperwork.

“She wanted to have people recognize her in the grocery story and in church,” he said. “She wanted to be a community doctor, which is why she’s so highly upset right now.”

Now, many employees are questioning the safety of the clinic. There are no lights in the parking lot, Darrell Prescott said, and there are businesses nearby that don’t have lights, either.

Several administrators of LRGHealthcare, which oversees the clinic, went to Westside on Thursday for a pizza lunch with staffers, several of whom requested more safety precautions, such as additional lights or a panic alarm.

Two people who heard accounts of the meeting said they were told that administrators turned down those requests, but LRGHealthcare Vice President Suzanne Stiles said that the hospital’s security department is doing a complete assessment of the clinic’s safety situation and will make specific changes from there.

Stiles said hospital officials have asked the Franklin police to step up their patrols of the area, and they’ve also asked clinic staffers not to be in the building outside of regular work hours, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. She said administrators are looking into glitches in the hospital’s remote internet access system.

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