WASHINGTON – Christine Blasey Ford was emotional, but definitive.

Unwavering as she faced public questions for the first time about her accusation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her decades ago, Ford told the world she is “100 percent” certain that Kavanaugh attacked her.

Her voice broke at times. But the 51-year-old psychology professor tapped her professional knowledge of trauma and its impact as she recounted her personal experience at a house party in 1982 with Kavanaugh – "the boy who sexually assaulted me."

Seared into her hippocampus, she said, is the "uproarious laughter" of Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge. She said they trapped her in a bedroom where Kavanaugh pinned her to the bed as he tried to remove her clothes.

"They were having fun at my expense," she said. "I was underneath one of them while the two laughed."

Ford believed Kavanaugh was going to rape her. She thought he might accidentally kill her, she testified, as he covered her mouth with his hand to prevent her from screaming.

Asked by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., how certain she is that it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her, Ford replied: "100 percent."

Appearing nervous at the start of the hearing that continued into the early afternoon, Ford remained polite as she faced questions from the female sex crimes prosecutor that the all-male Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee deferred to in their questioning.

When attorney Rachel Mitchell told Ford four hours into the hearing that “we’re almost done,” Ford sat back in her chair and exhaled.

She’d made clear at the start that she considered herself a reluctant witness who came forward out of civic duty.

"I am here today not because I want to be," she said. "I am terrified."

Ford had entered the walnut-paneled Senate committee room midmorning – the culmination of what she's called the hardest weeks of her life.

"After I read my opening statement, I anticipate needing some caffeine," she said.

Wearing a navy blue suit and glasses she occasionally pushed to the top of her head, Ford sipped first coffee and then Coke throughout her appearance. She turned and waved to supporters sitting behind her after taking her seat at the witness table.

The mother of two, who later told the semi-circle of senators that she's "no one's pawn," stoically faced Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley as he opened the hearing.

“I want to apologize to you both for the way you’ve been treated and I intend hopefully for today’s hearing to be safe, comfortable and dignified for both of our witnesses,” Grassley, R-Iowa, said to both Ford and the absent Kavanaugh.

The dozens of photographers that typically would have been jockeying to capture Ford's first seconds in the spotlight had been limited to eight. The video cameras were unobtrusively placed throughout the room.

The nearly 50 reporters squeezed into tables on the room's outer edges where they furiously typed her words into their laptops had also been reduced in numbers to fit into a space smaller than the one usually used for such blockbuster hearings.

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Kavanaugh, who has categorically denied the allegations, testified after Ford. He told senators that he's not questioning whether Ford "may have been sexually assaulted by some person in some place at some time."

"But I have never done this to her or to anyone," he said. "That’s not who I am. It is not who I was. I am innocent of this charge.”

Kavanaugh got a dry run when he sat for an interview with Fox News on Monday.

But Thursday was the first time the public could hear directly from Ford.

Asked why she originally wanted her account to be anonymous, Ford said that after Kavanaugh's nomination received substantial support, she determined she would only suffer "for no reason" by speaking out.

“I was trying to get you the information while there were other candidates," she said.

As Ford detailed the threats she's received since going public, Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., looked down at the table. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., clasped his hands in front of his face and stared straight ahead.

In comments during a lunch break that raised eyebrows, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, called Ford an articulate witness and an "attractive person."

"In other words, she's pleasing," Hatch told CNN.

(His spokesman later tweeted that Hatch regularly uses the world “attractive” to describe personalities, not appearances.)

Among those sitting in the six rows of chairs behind the witness table was actress Alyssa Milano, an outspoken advocate of the #MeToo movement. Milano had been invited by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

Milano was seated next to Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List which has been pushing senators to support Kavanaugh's nomination.

"Thank you Dr. Ford!" some unidentified female supporters of Ford yelled at the end of her testimony. "Bravo Dr. Ford!"

One woman chatting to another in an elevator after the hearing remarked: "Don't you think she's doing a good job speaking for all of us?"

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Contributing: Eliza Collins and Deidre Shesgreen, USA TODAY.