The heart-broken friend of Natasha McShane, the Irish student savagely beaten in Chicago, is keeping vigil by Natasha's hospital bed.

Stacy Jurich ,who was also badly injured in the attack, pulled out her IV tube so she could stagger to her friend's bedside.

"Come back. I need you to dance with me. I love you, and I’m sorry, and I’ll do everything I can for you," a weeping Jurich told Armagh student Natasha, who remains in a medically induced coma.

McShane is fighting for her life after being hit at least three times with a baseball bat.

She is suffering from skull fractures and brain swelling.

Jurich is making a slow recover, but she still doesn’t have full use of the left side of her body.

One of the two people alleged to have attacked Natasha and Stacey was refused bail after a Cook County judge said, “I don’t think there’s any condition or set of conditions [for bail] that I can impose that can protect the community from this individual.”

Heriberto Viramontes (30) has been arrested more than 30 times. A member of the Spanish Cobras gang, he has been convicted on possession of a stolen vehicle and domestic battery.

Jurich’s mother said, “What’s really upsetting is this guy has a 13-page rap sheet. He is a gang-banger. Why was he not put away a long time ago? If he had been, maybe this wouldn’t have happened to my daughter.”

Viramontes and his girlfriend, Stacy Cruz, 25, are alleged to have attacked McShane and Jurich as they walked home in Bucktown.

THe two - who had been drinking in a bar beforehand - drove under the viaduct in Bucktown and attacked McShane and Jurich.

Viramontes walloped both women in the head with his wooden baseball bat before leaving them for dead. The cold-blooded pair escaped in their van, where Police later found the baseball bat.

A local gas station has footage of the pair attempting to buy cigarettes with one of the victim’s credit cards, but they were denied because they did not know the security code.

The violent pair then tried to pay for gas in exchange for cash but the motorists at the gas station ignored them.

Cruz has never been convicted but has an arrest record for minor crimes.

Police Superintendent Jody Weis said the attack was senseless violence. “We want to charge them with everything we can,” he said.

Support for McShane’s family in Chicago continues. At Butch McGuire’s Irish Pub, where McShane worked part time, they have raised $5,000.

“This was going to be her wild summer in Chicago, just being young and having fun — a girls’ summer,” said Bartender Michael Kelleher.