I Survived: Kidnapped and Thrown Into a River - Full Episode (S1, E2) | A&E

he looked at me and um he said it's very  matter of fact he said i killed your friend the next thing i know i'm on the ground   he's on the ground with me i yell at  suzanne i said run suzanne he's not dead i said goodbye goodbyes to my  wife i said my goodbyes to my kids   and my primary goal now is to get  out of here is to live through this so i closed my eyes and i held my breath as much  as i could i didn't want him to see me breathing i   was hoping he would just think i  was dead and then leave me there so the whole way we were just talking  about which movie we're gonna pick   we couldn't decide on anything we pulled into  hollow videos and i picked out a few movies   then as we were coming back out this guy  approached both of us he had um just a   baseball cap pulled down over his head and black  hair curling out around him and we just looked   like a nice regular guy walking down the street  he just said um that he needed a ride home   so being in the small town we thought it was  safe so we went ahead and agreed we could give   him a 10-minute ride down the road to his house  it was probably about 15 minutes down the road we   noticed they were becoming less and less houses  and it was past nine o'clock so it was pretty   dark outside so finally um we asked him how much  further and he said oh just down the road just   down the road so we went a few minutes further and  then finally i pulled over and told him um that if   it's not that much further down the road he could  just get out and walk that we had to get home   because it was a school night and gave him that  whole excuse and at that point he said well   would it make a difference if i said i had  a gun we both kind of looked at each other   and liz started shaking nervously shaking  her hands he asked us if we had any money   and i said well we don't have any cash or  anything on and he told us to start driving again   so i continued driving down the road  and he told me exactly where to turn at the top of the hill he asked us to stop the  vehicle put it in park but keep my hands on the   steering wheel he told me to take the shoelaces  out of my shoes and liz had to tie my hands to   the steering wheel he made sure that they were  very tight so that i wouldn't be able to move   he stepped out of the car and  as soon as he shut the door   i looked over at liz and she was looking at me  and she reached over and she squeezed my hand   since i couldn't move mine and she said she loved  me and i told her i loved her too and i said sorry   i said that i'm sorry that i got listened  to this she said we both agreed it was a   joint decision and then um right after  we said we loved each other one more time   um he opened her door and told her  to step out and the last thing i said   to her was liz i'm gonna see you again  don't worry we're gonna see each other again lorenzo is a very easygoing person he's very  well educated kind of quiet and and reserved but we were always pretty good friends when we first met jose who was our guide he  was pretty very personable person nice guy   he seemed to know what he was talking  about so we just we were relaxed with him we knew we were just going for a few  hours and since it was our last evening   we didn't take all that much  extra extra drinks with us it started getting dark so then our guide said  okay you know let's let's pack it in so we we   reeled everything in and we put our gear away  and just just sat back for the ride back to the   boat and he kept going south and it was about  a few minutes after that with them hey aren't   you going the wrong way the boat's up north and  he said no no the boat's over here he passed us   you guys didn't see it the boat passes  in and they're over they're over here   they're waiting for us it's just it's just a  little bit ahead it's starting to get windy   water's starting to come in the boat and we asked  him again are you sure you're going the right way   and he said yes we're just in tank tops and shorts  and now and the water's coming in we're just   getting soaked head to toe and it was it was just  it was cold and at this time lorenzo mentioned to   me said hey you know this is not vacation  anymore this is not this is this not right the guy he just kept going and just kept going  and going and finally it was about i think it   was around seven maybe a little bit after seven  and he mentions that uh he's running out of gas sammy and i decided to get on on  the road because he had to be at   the emergency room he's an emergency room  physician and he had to be at work at six   it was cold it was missing rain we  left heading home around 1 30 or so   and we came up on a vehicle that was stalled there  was a man standing outside the vehicle he was   had his arms crossed he appeared to be cold almost  shivering he was probably about six two six three   he had on a cap he had on a pullover sweater  and some jeans i looked at him and i thought   this could be one of my sons uh he could be about  he looked to be about their age and i felt the   thing to do was to stop and offer assistance  and he said he'd fill his car up with gas and   he couldn't go any further it just wouldn't go and  he didn't know what was wrong with it i said well   can we give you a ride somewhere to get out of the  cold he said yes i would certainly appreciate that   i had hesitation about him getting  in the car from the very beginning i just had this feeling that something went right   he sat in the seat behind me uh he said  his name was michael as we reached the   place where we were going to turn off the  main highway to go towards our hometown   i started slowing down pulling into a convenience  store and he pulled a gun stuck it in my   right side he said folks i'm afraid we're going  to have to keep driving you know we get inured on   watching things on tv where people get guns  pointed at them but until you've had a gun   a loaded gun pointed at you i can't tell you how  horrible that is it is extremely frightening and   then the most i guess today the strangest  thing happened my wife grabbed the pistol and the last thing i said to her was liz i'm  gonna see you again and then i saw him lead   her up to the top of the hill i couldn't hear  anything i couldn't see anything i was scared i saw him coming back down and he was by himself and then he came to my side the  driver's door and opened the door and   he yelled at me and told me to get out and then i  don't know what was going through my head at the   moment but i yelled back at him i said you're  an idiot you tied my he made her tie my hands   to this dude while i can't get out of the car  he took something and really really fast just   like sliced the shoelaces and it didn't occur to  me in my head at the moment that he had a knife and then he started walking me up the hill  and at that moment i kind of thought this   is it this is the end this is the end of  my life i lived 18 years and that's that i just kept thinking about everyone that was  really close to me and i wasn't even worried   about i was just worried about um you know would  they be able to find us would they figure out what   happened would they be mad because we let some  stranger into our car i didn't know and then um   we got to the top of the hill and he started to  lead me to the right and i look i started to look   over this way and he took his hand and went like  this and i'd seen a mound on the ground i didn't   again i it didn't click in my mind that that  was liz's body right there that she was gone and he stood there for a moment  and he was smoking a cigarette   and he wasn't saying anything to me and then um and then after two or three minutes   he grabbed my arm again and started leading me  back down the hill he'd put me back in the vehicle   he got into the driver's side behind the  wheel and as soon as he started driving   he looked at me and um he said it's very  matter of fact he said i killed your friend   and i didn't react i remember i just  looked out the window i didn't cry i didn't   i didn't do anything i didn't yell at  him i didn't i was just in complete shock   and he let a few seconds pass by and then he said  i just wanted to see your reaction i wanted to see   if he would break down if he would cry and he said  since you didn't i'll tell you the truth i really   i just let her go i told her the directions  to get back to town and she went on her way   so with thinking that liz was okay my next thought  was oh my goodness why am i still here she's safe   and what is he doing with me now  what is he going to do with me we didn't have any cell phone we didn't have a  marine radio in which i'm well we're better off   beating the boat than just staying out out of open  sea with no with no power and no wars or nothing as soon as he went in the front of that boat just  went straight up and uh the back end got swamped   and i fell into the water and on lorenzo's side  when he jumped off he just had flip-flop sandals   on and when he jumped out he slipped on the  rocks and he kind of sprained both his feet lorenzo had a hard time walking  said to him why don't you want   to set up a little uh a break so we  don't get so we don't get the wind   and and you can just be sitting down we had a  lot of firewood and we set up a huge bonfire   it was it was huge and we we burned this wood  through the we burned it out through the night the following morning the guide said you know  they're not going to come pick us up so what   do you mean yeah they have to no they're  not they're not going to come this way he started telling us that he could  swim across the channel to the mainland   now this is a 20-mile channel with high currents  throughout and he said i could make it across   i can make that he stripped down to just his  underwear and and he put his boots and everything   in a grocery shopping bag put the bot the water  the bottle of water in there his hat everything the next thing that happened i saw somebody  quarters of them all the way and say larry   larry will pick word word save man there's  somebody there's somebody walking down here   as he got closer it was jose was the guide  he had come back he said that he got about   halfway across and that he saw a big shark  underneath him and the shark scared him   he dropped his but he left his bag  and he just went back he just ran back   so he lost everything and we'd  lost that that one bottle of water we made some makeshift oars out of some  planks of wood that were laying there   and we started rolling the boat across the channel   and that's when i started visualizing seeing  my grandson i just i just kept visualizing my   grandson and my primary goal now is to  get out of here is to live through this and we wrestled with that gun  until he made the statement   that's what that old man did when i killed that  old woman and i knew he had committed murder and i   let go of the gun and i'm sitting here thinking  you know oh my goodness what am i going to do   i turned to suzanne and  i'm out the words i'm sorry   because i knew had made a big mistake i knew  it made a very big mistake picking this man up basically we just continued  to drive south after that   when we take trips we probably step stop about  every hour and a half to two hours for a bathroom   break and we were needing a bathroom break he  had us drive down a little dirt road there and   then back the vehicle up sort of behind a little  mound where nobody could see us from the road   and that's when he said the statement  that was probably the most frightening   he said okay he said i'm taking the safety  off the gun he said i won't hesitate to kill   one of you if the other one tries something  i'm already facing death row in oklahoma very dark we're walking along these railroad  tracks with no lights businesses houses nothing   around us he was asking me about my friends  if i had a lot of them if i had a boyfriend   in the back of my head i was probably  thinking um along the lines that if i did   keep up this friendly conversation it might  help him to see me more of more as a person his whole demeanor changed right then he  just said how badly do you want to live   and i said more than anything  he said okay now strip i hesitated kind of thinking i'd obviously  i don't want to do this um he told me again   he said if you want to live you're going to  listen to every word i say and do as i say he unzipped his pants and pulled them down i honestly don't even know how long that  actually lasted because my mind it lasted hours   and he got down and threw my clothes back at me  and told me to get dressed um so i put my clothes   on very quickly and stayed sort of huddled  up in a ball i didn't want to move um he was   standing on the road tracks again smoking he  told me to um walk onto the rubber trestle   and there was like a little a little platform  off to the side of it with a railing around it   he told me to face the river and kneel down put  my hands behind my back the next thing i knew   i couldn't breathe oh towards the evening around 5 30 6 o'clock before  dusk we see the shore we could see people on boats   and we started yelling and screaming they  didn't see us the wind started blowing   our way in our direction and we tried to roll as  fast as we could we just we now we were not making   any headway and the harder we rode the more we  just we just kept going back towards the island it was about three or four in the  morning jose he woke us all up   and he said we're going to  crash we're going to crash we couldn't see anything i mean it was it was  just pitch black the guide was able to find   a small cave that was carved into the into  that that cliff it was just big enough for   the three of us would fit in there and we got  in there laid down we're just we're just tired when we woke up and we came  out the boat had broken up   during the night we just  saw the pieces of wood there our goal was the northern end we  knew that there would probably be   some more of these tourist trips that were there   or some commercial fishermen that'd be fishing  up there so that was our goal is to get there the only source of water that we had was  the bottled waters that washed ashore   sodas cokes or or whatever that people finish and  they leave a little bit at the bottom and put the   cap back on one of them looked like an old squirt  it was yellowish it looked almost it was kind of   curdled almost like cottage cheese less than a  cup a day is what we'd find but it was something the lighter just fell apart that salt water  just ate it up it just it fell to pieces   so now we had no way of making  a fire so then we'd found some sea cucumbers that we found and we  ate those those things are nasty there was a couple of nights where we  had to spend the night out in the open   bad decisions it was just freezing cold   that wind would get you that wind to just rip  you apart you can't believe how cold it can be i couldn't see in the water so as i  was walking through there i would find   rocks by hitting them with my shins okay and  since all that coral that was growing there   i just i just kept cutting up my shins i cut my  knees i cut my feet my feet were just shredded we finally get around this one turn and we see the beach where uh when  we crashed the first night that was   probably one of the lowest points for  me we're just back where we started   we're now we're tired now we're we don't have  any water we have nothing and we're back where we started in my business as an emergency doctor i  frequently get involved in situations where   there is chaos and in my business i have to try  to remain calm even though there's chaos going on   no i didn't want to antagonize him at all i never   tried to question him i wanted my demeanor  during this whole time to be docile and meek i had a gun in the side pocket of my car  and i kept him fussing with me to keep him   from searching the car in arkansas if you uh  are traveling more than 50 miles or if you're   protecting valuables you can carry a firearm in  your vehicle and i knew that pistol was there   trying to retrieve that pistol would not have been  easy as long as he was sitting right behind me   he said he wanted us to drive him to texas canada and when we got to texas canada sammy said  you're really not going to texana are you   he said no i'm not so i took the road to go south   and he said when i get to the next town i'm  going to let you out i'm going to let you go we'd get to that town he said the next  town he's going to go the tension in the   car kept building and building and building  and we realized he was not going to let us go and all of a sudden he said doc how  much life insurance have you got on her   and i knew what the implication was you know  i'll kill her for you and you can get the money   that angered and frightened me and that's when  i became convinced that he was going to kill us i didn't understand what was going on i  just knew i couldn't breathe i blacked out   i uh gained consciousness again  but realized he was behind me   and he hadn't realized that i had woken up yet um   so i closed my eyes and i held my breath as much  as i could i didn't want him to see me breathing   i was hoping he would just think i was dead  and then leave me there and then he started uh   punching my back and kicking my back trying to  see if i would wake up or breathe to really see   if i was dead or not he hit my back so hard one  time i couldn't hold it anymore and i just gasped   and all the air came out and my eyes flew open  and he straddled me and took a hold of my head   and tried to twist my head around to  try and snap my neck that didn't work   he tried it several times he got very very angry  at that point that he couldn't he couldn't kill me he was banging me up against the  railing banging my head up against it   nothing was working and finally he just tried to  throw me over um into the river my feet got stuck   and it got wrapped around the railing so  then i just kind of hung there and he got   even more mad the whole time he was just getting  angrier and angrier and uh finally got me loose   and since it had been raining so much the water  level of the river was up quite a bit and that   was very very fortunate for me because i fell head  first into the river when i came up my face was   still in the water and my back was floating um  i just let my hands and legs just sort of flow   with the water and pretended to be dead i let the  river the currents um take me under the bridge   luckily there were logs that had been tangled up  and stuck underneath the bridge so i grabbed onto   one and i was trying so hard to be quiet because  i knew he was he was right above me and i could   hear him walking and i could hear him cursing  and i could see the light from his cigarette   it was so cold in that river i didn't think  i could stay in the water so i finally was   able to quietly pull myself up onto the log  and stayed there and waited and watched him lorenzo looked at me and he said uh i can't  eat that i said what do you mean you can't   eat that i said i i don't have a plate i can't  eat that and at that at the time i didn't know   if he was joking with me or um or if he was  being serious you can't eat it he said no   so come on i said no i don't have a plate   the guy that picked up a swim fin that um it  was it was just laying there some of the from   junk and so i took that swim fin and put his fish  on top and go there now you had a plate eat it we had to go through this gap  and as we went through this gap   lorenzo got got taken in underwater and as  he came up his wall his glasses came off   i always knew that his glasses were  important to him he said my glasses   my glasses i have to have my glasses at them  they're gone there's no way we can get them i think lorenzo i think he was tired and wanted  us to be over with i guess in the back of my mind   yes we could die but i never i never accepted  that i said we're getting out of here and i   kept telling lorenzo we're getting out of here  i heard some gurgling and just water gurgling   and i turned around and i s and i just see  the top of lawrence's head and finally i   realized he's underwater it took me a while  to realize and then finally i pulled him out   and said what are you doing and he just  he just shook his head and he looked at me am i right something about the way he  looked and i told the guy that hey you're   we're gonna have to get we're gonna  have to get uh we're gonna have to get   you know get ashore we're gonna have  to dry him out he needs some sun i couldn't get up it took me 20 25 minutes to get  up to get out to get out of the water finally get   over there and uh we pulled lorenzo completely  out of the water we put him on his back in a   sunny area and and i looked at him and he's just  staring you know he's he's just staring you know   mom he's face up and he's just staring and i said  lorenzo and you know there's no reaction at all   it's just a glazed look on his eyes and  i told the guy now he's dead he's gone i just point out saying he's going  to kill us i just said it out loud and there's a song that the people sing at all  the funerals is i'm bound for the promised land   and sammy hum that to me let me know that  he thought that he was going to kill us too i began to tell him i had  to go to the bathroom again   i really need to go i actually began  to squirm i was faking all this   i was trying to have the element of  surprise we pulled over the side of the road he told me to turn off the lights i did this time   he got out at the same time suzanne  did on the opposite side of the vehicle   and when he did i slumped over the steering  wheel and then i reached into the door pocket   and retrieved the little 22 revolver pistol that  belongs to my wife he gets out he stands by the   vehicle and i slowly try to open the door and as  the noise of the door happens i cocked the pistol i stand up and i am probably about two feet  from him but it is dark and i opened fire i really didn't know how many times i  shot but then all of a sudden i realized   that the gun is not in my hand the next thing i  know i'm on the ground he's on the ground with   me i yell at suzanne i said run suzanne  he's not dead i could hear him fighting   scuffling in the dirt and it  was dark and i couldn't find him his pistol is between us and i see it and it's  poured in right at my stomach and i get a hold   of it and try to wrestle it away from him  i'm i'm very fearful he's going to shoot me   then all of a sudden he pulled it away from me  and then i realized i am being hit in the head   over and over again and now my little  voice in my head said go down and play dead   so i immediately fell to the  ground and i'm lying there   and i'm figuring well i turned my eyes  to heaven i said lord i'm coming home and then all of a sudden i hear this  little voice come running around and said   don't kill him don't kill him it's suzanne he said  i'm not gonna kill him [ __ ] i'm gonna kill you listening to him his footsteps lock back  and forth he was pacing and then i saw   his footsteps walking this way behind me   i waited a few minutes and realized her hoping  he's gone so i slowly crawled back into the water   so it wasn't very far but it seemed to take  me forever to finally get to the other side   and then once i got to the shore i was suddenly  very very nervous thinking what if i swim to the   wrong side of the shore what if he really  didn't leave and he's just sitting up there   i kind of peeked my head up looked one  way didn't see anything look the other   way i didn't see anything i took off running  a few cars passed me they just kept right on   going there was actually there's a bar just  down the street from where i had come out of   so pretty much every vehicle passing by just  assumed i was just some drunken woman from the bar as soon as i saw it stop my heart just lifted  and oh i was so excited just thinking okay   i'm this is done this is this night is over he was an off-duty police officer he took  care of me he didn't leave me at the police   station either he didn't just drop me off  and leave he stayed there the whole time so yeah i told the guy to go  let's just pray for him and that's all we can do so we did so hardest thing i ever had to do was  leave him that morning that 13th day we were pretty close to our goal of the  northern end of the island jose told me that um   did you see that boat i said what are you  talking about he said i swear to god i saw a   boat and i'm gonna run over there see if i can  find the boat so i agreed i said okay go ahead   once he got around a band that was there and  he wasn't visible to me anymore i just thought   what the hell did i just do what if something  happens to him which one something happens to me   damn no more than 20 minutes later a boat  came around for the from the way that he went   and he was up front standing looking  into the water pointing at me   and they came alongside and they  said want some help yeah no kidding lorenzo passed away on the 12th day of our ordeal   it wasn't that much further he would have  um if he would have just made one more day i think he would have made it he said i'm not gonna kill  him [ __ ] i'm gonna kill you and he held a gun to my head and it  done clicked and then he turned the   pistol around and hit me in the in the head  right here and my knees buckled to the ground   we're right on the edge of the road i said  suzanne we've got to get out of the way we've   got to get out of the way he's allowed to run  back over and kill us or come back and shoot us   and just sort of tried to lift her to  move out of the road finally got her   enough out of the road and then i laid  down on top of her and he just drove off i hugged susan she hugged  me and i said we're alive   we're alive it's such a flood  of relief to know that you're alive first of all i don't think you ever get over  anything like this i drove by a couple guys in   the ditch here a couple years ago in a snowstorm  and i had a four wheel drive vehicle and they were   waving at me and i just drove right on i i cannot  do that anymore if you go over in your mind you go   over your mind and sometimes i still do everyone  smile but i've learned to kind of just put that   in a different category because if i get to play  in the what ifs and think about what happened and   what could have happened and you know that didn't  happen we survived and that's all that matters we work commonly towards a goal   even though one person or the other made the  wrong decision we didn't fault him for it we just made some bad decisions and we got over it i survived because at the time i did not  want to die my grandson had just been born   he was very important to me and i just did  not want to die at that time at that place   when the police found him he had blood all  over his shirt and all over his pants and they   asked me if i had seen that and i said you know  honestly i didn't realize that i didn't notice it   if i had let myself really think about what i  had just seen and what had actually occurred at   the top of that hill i would have broke down and  i don't believe that i would have survived either the whole time i was saying to him about liz   how could you you have no idea how  wonderful of a person you took away i believe i survived because of a combination   of the love of all my family and friends  and my own survival instinct inside of me   the powers of your mind if you let it  do its job it can do amazing things you

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Keywords: a&e, aetv, a&e tv, ae, a&e television, a&e shows, a+e, the first 48, crime, true crime, crime investigation, solving crime, police, detectives, attorneys, police procedure, cold case, live PD, 60 days in, swat team, narcotics, jail, prison, a and e, I Survived, cops, a&e I Survived, I Survived tv show, I Survived promo clips, I Survived clips, I Survived season 1 episode 2, I Survived a&e, episodes, sudden crime, surveillance, I Survived s1 e2, I Survived videos, I Survived episodes

Id: VdYLWFMTc0o

Length: 45min 6sec (2706 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 10 2021