The now 26-year-old Mandarin-­language teacher who suffered severe burns to 50% of her body and face in a Jan. 23, 2024, acid attack made her first public appearance Monday, to thank the public for their generous donations totaling more than $193,000.

Danying Zhang, a
Chinese national who teaches at Maryknoll School, wore a sleeveless top, revealing the severe acid burns to her arms, neck and face, at a news conference held at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii.

Through a Mandarin interpreter, she said she deeply appreciates the strong support from the public and the 2,400 donors during the most challenging time of recovery, along with the Chamber of Commerce, the Honolulu chapter of the US-China People’s Friendship Association and the Hawaii Mainland Overseas Chinese Association.

Zhang said she would be willing to testify at trial in the criminal case, although she doesn’t recall anything about the person who attacked her. She likely will have to testify in two trials as a result of Circuit Judge Fa‘auuga To‘oto‘o’s decision Monday morning to allow
the trial to be severed
between defendants
Sebastian Mahkwan and Paul Cameron.

Zhang said she had gone shopping and was headed home that evening when she was attacked outside Planet Fitness along Ala Moana Boulevard with what felt like hot water. She said her skin felt like it was
burning.

She recalls going into Planet Fitness and using
water to wash off the substance, but she lost consciousness by the time the ambulance arrived.

The first couple of months were the most challenging, when she was unable to move or speak for 1-1/2 months, and everything was extremely painful.

She was in a coma but not sure for how long.

She went through physical therapy to learn to stand, walk, talk and eat with a spoon.

Zhang has undergone six surgeries thus far, the most recent a month ago, and has a long road to recovery.

She still feels constant pain, is not fully flexible, and certain movements cause pain due to the scar tissue.

Zhang continues physical therapy and visits to the hospital.

But the mental and emotional pain and deep anxiety also have been difficult to overcome.

Zhang said she was
extremely scared, even though doctors and nurses reassured her safety measures had been taken that the surgeries would go well.

She would lie awake late at night, feeling as if someone were pouring something over her.

After completing the first phase of treatment, she was afraid to go home, fearful of going anywhere unfamiliar.

“Mama” came in March 2024 from China, two months after the attack. Her mother gave her lots of courage, but when Zhang and her mother returned home, they didn’t feel strong enough to defend themselves against an attacker.

Vernon Ching, president of the Honolulu Chapter of the US-China People’s Friendship Association,
welcomed Zhang when she first arrived from China, and took her to dinner and to see the Christmas trees at Honolulu Hale. He said he was shocked when the attack occurred.

The attack made headlines in China with fears that Chinese were being targeted, he said.

But when police announced it was a random attack and not targeted against her or Chinese people, that gave little solace to Zhang.

She said that if it had been a targeted attack against a group, like Chinese people, then she is one of many within the group, but for a random attack, she felt as if she was one in a million people in Hawaii.

And it amplified her
feelings of being alone in this situation, despite the help she received from those within the Chinese
associations.

Ching, for example, took her to physical therapy three times a week and was pleased to see the progress she made in a month from needing help in getting into his truck to being able to get in on her own.

Zhang returned to teaching online in late 2024. At the start of 2025, she returned to the campus doing office work and teaching over 30 Maryknoll students online from grades 1 to 7. Before the attack she taught two classes totaling more than 40 students.

She was excited to go back since students and teachers offered their encouragement and concern, sending cards to her while she recovered.

Her message to others: “Be brave. Face the challenges, no matter good or bad, in your life. Embrace the challenges in life and live your life.”

The Chinese Chamber of Commerce opened a GoFundMe for Zhang while she was hospitalized and collected more than $193,000 and turned it over to her for her medical expenses and closed the account. Another fund was opened in her name.

Earlier Monday the judge also denied the state’s motion to consolidate the trials in two separate acid attacks of young women outside fitness centers, one in Mililani and the other in which Zhang was attacked, involving the two defendants.

He said they are two separate incidents and two separate victims. “They each deserve their own trial,” he said.

The state will now have three separate trials: one for the Mililani acid attack, and two for the Ala Moana attack with one trial for Cameron and one trial for Mahkwan.

The judge said he cannot overlook the potential prejudice against Mahkwan, who is involved in the Ala Moana attack but not in the first case in Mililani.

He noted that it might be easy for the court and attorneys, but “it might be more difficult for the jury given the potential for error, confusion and prejudice.”

In the first case, Cameron is charged with second-­degree attempted murder
of Davina Licon on April 7, 2023, outside the Mililani
24-Hour Fitness. He allegedly fired a handgun at her, then poured a chemical substance on her that caused her clothes and
skin to burn. She suffered second- and third-degree chemical burns to more than 30% of her body.

In the second case Mah­kwan is charged with attempted murder and first-
degree assault in the attack on Zhang by splashing a chemical substance on her as she walked near Planet Fitness.

Mahkwan was indicted Jan. 30, 2024, on charges of second-degree attempted murder and first-degree
assault.

Deputy Prosecutor Dwayne Tegman said despite there being two incidents, they are related because Cameron had a conspiracy with Mahkwan to try and raise doubt as to his guilt in the first attack.

They “used similar means of causing injury, the same sort of acid in both,” he said.

The judge chimed in: “To make it look like there’s somebody else out there doing the same thing.”

Tegman cited case law that a joinder is warranted when the cases are related. He said that the facts of the first case will come out in the second trial, so any prejudice is not so great that it outweighs “judicial economy” since many of the same witnesses will have to testify again in the second trial.

Cameron was charged
in an April 26, 2023, superseding indictment in the second case with accomplice to attempted murder, accomplice to first-degree assault, and first- and
second- degree attempted murder.

He allegedly instructed Mahkwan to randomly attack a second woman.

In the same indictment, Mahkwan was charged with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, first-degree attempted murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree attempted murder and/or second-degree attempted murder and/or first-degree assault.

At the hearing, Cameron and Mahkwan sat a few feet apart on a bench behind the defense table.

Tegman told the judge witness Vernard Anderson, a cellmate of both defendants, will have to testify in both trials.

Tegman reveals in his
motion to consolidate that the three resided in the same module in jail from October 2023 to January 2024.

Anderson said Cameron admitted to committing the first attack and was looking for a scapegoat to commit another acid attack. Cameron offered him $2,000 and a motorcycle to commit an acid attack, gave Anderson written instructions on where to get acid, what type of victim to seek and what to tell law enforcement about the Mililani attack.

Tegman argues all the
admissions made by Cameron to Anderson are
admissible.

But Mahkwan’s lawyer, Keith Shigetomi, argued the state’s arguments all pertain to Cameron’s cases and go to motive, planning, preparation and intent.

“But from Mahkwan’s view they are all prior bad acts of Cameron,” not of his client, Shigetomi said.

Shigetomi says there is overwhelming prejudice to combine another case, which Mahkwan had no knowledge about, with the second case.

“Guilt by association will be readily presumed by a jury in a consolidated trial with both of Defendant Cameron’s cases,” Shigetomi wrote in a supporting document.