CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A local college math teacher is in a coma after nearly being beaten to death.

A driver, Meredith Richi, found 42-year-old Narayan Dhakal lying faced down, left for dead in the middle of East Eighth Street in uptown Charlotte around 1:30 a.m. Friday.

Richi said she doesn’t want to be considered a Good Samaritan. In fact, she said at first she thought the man lying in the street was a trap because another man had just tried to flag her down.

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VIDEO: Good Samaritan Talks About Discovering Beaten Instructor

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“(I thought) they were both homeless. They were setting me up. It’s 1:30 in the morning,” she said. “So I decided to call 911, drive around him, pick up my friend and come back so at least I had somebody else with me.”

Richi quickly realized something was terribly wrong.

“When I pulled up onto Eight Street and I shined my lights on him, I realized he was lying in a pool of blood. So I jumped up out of the car, still on the phone with 911,” she said. “When I got out of the car and asked him if he was OK, he didn’t respond, so I told him that help was on the way.”

Officers said when they arrived, they discovered Dhakal’s wallet and cell phone were missing so it took them several days to determine his identity.

Whatever his identity, Richi was glad she could help.

“I know that if it were my brother, my fiancée or my dad laying in the middle of the street, I would hope that someone would stop and help them. So that was something else that ran through my head, ‘This is someone's loved one,’” Richi said.

Dhakal’s brother, Abi, said his brother has been teaching at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for two years and is currently pursuing a second master’s degree. He said Narayan Dhakal was in the middle of a busy, stressful semester and was trying to blow off steam by going to Bar Charlotte in uptown Thursday night.

Abi Dhakal said his brother met a friend at the bar but the two left separately. Police said some time after that, Dhakal was robbed and beaten, and may have lain in the road for hours.

“Suddenly, the thing comes in my mind, the picture that he’s laying there. Oh my God,” Abi Dhakal said. “And to see a guy that regularly goes to the gym, runs, teaching, going to school – full of energy – all of the sudden zombied up, it’s like, gosh, I can’t believe this.”

He said his brother was getting the second degree so he could leave teaching and work in finance, which is why he moved to Charlotte.

Dhakal said police have leads in the case, but officers have not arrested any suspects in the attack.