A 28-year-old Mexican man who confessed to beating and abandoning a Canadian tourist in a luxury resort elevator says he attacked the woman out of fear.

"It wasn't planned or anything like that. It just happened in the moment," José Ramón Acosta Quintero told reporters at a Saturday news conference.

Sheila Nabb, a 37-year-old office manager from Calgary, had been on vacation with her husband Andrew at the five-star Hotel Riu Emerald Bay in Mazatlan when she was found beaten and bloodied in a hotel elevator.

Police arrested Quintero in connection with the attack on Friday. The next day authorities paraded him before the media to tell his version of what happened to Nabb.

"I didn't try to abuse her, or I didn't … I didn't try to kill her or anything like … or rob her or anything. I was just afraid and I wanted to leave," said Quintero.

Prior to the assault, Quintero said he had been drinking with a Canadian friend and "doing a line of cocaine." He told reporters that he got into the elevator with the intention of riding to the top floor and gazing down at the lights of the resort city.

He says he encountered Nabb, who he said wasn't wearing any clothes, at the sixth floor. When Quintero tried to prevent her from leaving he said she screamed, and he panicked.

"I didn't try to abuse her, or I didn't … I didn't try to kill her or anything like … or rob her or anything. I was just afraid and I wanted to leave."

Quintero said he covered Nabb's mouth and asked her not to yell.

"But she continued yelling," he said. "She got more afraid when I covered her mouth. And then I hit her ... four or five times in the face with my fist. And then I left."

Police have said they identified Quintero from surveillance footage showing a man exiting the elevator in question.

Authorities also say they found blood on Quintero's sandals which matches the blood of the victim, reporter Ioan Grillo told CTV News Channel on Saturday.

Quintero maintains that he didn't kick Nabb at any point during the attack.

"I've seen the video and it does show that I put my foot back into the elevator but… it wasn't a kick," the slight young man told reporters, speaking in both fluent English and Spanish.

In his version of events, Quintero said he was trying to push Nabb's hand back into the elevator to allow the doors to close so that he could leave.

Freelance reporter David Agren, who attended the news conference, said police are struggling to identify a clear motive in Nabb's assault.

Quintero, however, told the media that the beating was driven by pure panic. Speaking in a neon orange construction vest, he stammered while trying to tell reporters that he didn't intend to harm Nabb.

Nabb's family has said that every bone in her face was broken after the attack.

She was flown back to Calgary on Friday via a private air ambulance and was taken to hospital where doctors put her into a medically induced coma.

Her jaw had to be wired shut before facial reconstructive surgery. It isn't clear whether Nabb had that surgery in Mexico.

Back in the resort town of Mazatlan, hundreds of kilometres away from the woman he says he attacked, Quintero waits to appear before a judge to face charges of attempted murder.