If I Don't Pretend To Be Dead They're Really Going To Kill Me

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This episode contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. The man who was sitting behind me grabbed my hair and pulled my head back and cut my throat. real people. At this time I thought I'm probably dying, but I'm not going to. No way I'm gonna die. Who faced death. I basically was screaming and and trying to hit him and

That's he stabbed me in my neck and said, Look how easily I could kill you and live to tell how. I'd been stabbed s seventeen times in my back. And it that was the first moment where I really thought, if I don't pretend to be dead, they're going to really kill me. This is I Survived.

It's June 2004 in San Antonio, Texas. Wayne and Mary live close to a railroad track that runs by their property. I was sound asleep in my own bed and uh Suddenly I woke up choking I couldn't catch my breath. And uh it took me just a few seconds to realize that it was uh that the air was contaminated. I recognized the smell as chlorine, strongest I had ever smelled in my life. At 5.05 a.m., a train derailment ruptured a tank of chlorine gas.

Lethal chlorine fumes began leaking into the atmosphere. Chlorine burns the moist tissue in the lungs and eyes. It was a very sickening smell. The smell just seemed like it took over your breath. It i it didn't give you a chance to really breathe because every time you had try to breathe. It was just like something going in there and just taking your insides, burning, stinging. Wayne's brother in law, Robbie, was also staying in the house.

The windows that were open would not close, so I roused my brother in law. We stuffed him full of sofa cushions, dirty clothes, whatever we could find. And still didn't do much good, but we tried. Wayne's stepsister and stepmother lived close by. At that instant my stepsister called and told us there had been a train wreck, so then we knew this was a little before daylight. But I could see a white liquid plume. Well, more of a stream.

uh arcing way over the trees and over Nelson Road, and landing uh about a hundred feet north of our house, all of the veg vegetation, uh, As far down as our house was simply burned away. The derailed train was blocking the only road into their property. The only way out was across farmland. It had been raining for a week. We had no option of driving out through the field.

It was so muddy that it would at least take a four-wheel drive vehicle to traverse that plowed ground. We could we didn't have one. I have a little office building uh not far from the house that is completely sealed. I thought if we could make that building, we would have a few hours. Another option, I had a a tank of uh oxygen in the garage that could also sustain us for a few hours. Uh, I reached my pocket and got my keys and they were just a glob of green corrosion.

There's no chance of opening the door. Chlorine gas corrodes metal. Uh, my next shot was to get that oxygen out of the shop. Same thing, no key would fit any lot. Wayne was partially deaf, so Mary had to make all the phone calls. Mary called 911 from her cell phone. Hello. Hello? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Elston Road. What's going on over there, ma'am? I don't know. I think a train detailed.

We can't breathe. Oh, we have a we have someone en route to you, ma'am. Can you are you in the house? Yes. You need to get out of the house, ma'am, if you can't breathe. I can't breathe. You need to get out of the house, ma'am. Our next option was to Go down and see what the situation looked like down at the road crossing. Well, we drove down all the way up to the tracks. What was left of the tracks?

Uh, still couldn't see. There was this terrific fog. I go up, walk up as far as I can, I see a locomotive laying on its side right across the middle of the street. There was two cars of the train. One was standing straight up on top of the other one, And it was just horrible. There was no way that we could get it through the road because of the train. They said they put the sheriff's office. You got a lady on the line stuck in the in the middle of the chlorine spill.

Right. There's three of'em. She's on the phone, having a hard time breeding. Is there any type of pre arrival instructions you can give her to try to help her? Ma'am Can oh yeah. Can you get away from the trains? We have people in the area that are trying to help you but you just need to try to get away from that train as as far as you can. I don't know what's wrong. Something's bad wrong. I had all kind of confidence uh in the volunteers, but uh

I don't I don't understand what's wrong. Why don't they do something? We drove down uh by the river to see if we could find a way out. There was a steel gate across the street. A tall gate, eight or ten feet high. Heavy steel. Couldn't get through. We went back and went down a neighbor's long driveway. As far as we could, we encountered another gate. So I turned the suburban around backwards so as not to set off the airbags. And I ran that gate, I mean pedal to the metal, I hit it hard. And uh

I didn't think anything happened. I got out of the suburban to look. Nothing did happen to the gate. Suburban folded up like a beer can. And it wouldn't have helped anyway because there there was a truckload of logs directly behind the gate stuck in the mud. We couldn't have got through anyway. Three hours had passed since the train crash. Emergency services were still unsure about the size and spread of the gas cloud. The 911 operator called Mary in the car.

Yes, ma'am, EMS is on their way. They are gonna get to you and they will take you safely to the hospital, okay? I can't wait much longer. It's been over two or three hours. We gotta get out of here. Okay, don't go back to the home, okay? Eight minutes later, the nine one one operator reversed her advice. Ma'am, what if you want to go back to your home, go ahead.

Well, once we got back at the house, uh neither Mary nor my brother in law could could walk. I had to help them both to get back into the house. All of our clocks quit running. All the watches, uh, all the time pieces. Everything just died. We had a stainless stove, stainless refrigerator, and you know, all the

Trappings in the kitchen were stainless steel. The stainless steel would melt, it would flow down, down the walls, onto the countertops, off onto the floor. I had thought all of my life that stainless steel Steel was impervious to anything wrong. It will not stand that uh that strength of of chlorine. Jean and Lois lived 200 yards away.

I told Mary I'm going to get Jean and Law. That's my stepmom and stepsister. I'm go I'm going to get'em. And she had uh nine and one one on the phone and uh I told them that I was going to attempt to rescue my stepmom and my stepsister and they told me they had oh, we already got them, they're okay. I was terrifically relieved when I was told that they were rescued.

because I'd been worried about them all along. Jean and Lois had not been rescued. I kept calling 911, trying to get them to come, tell me to do something. All they would tell me is turn off your air condition, stay in the room, stay in the house. Uh, Mary and my brother-in-law were both in bad, bad shape. We had no chance of walking out because they couldn't walk. I couldn't carry both of them.

Had an old work truck that we'd been using there and I started up and moved it around to the other side of the house and I climbed on top of it and my head was out of the fog. I could actually breathe. I could see over to the southeast there was no gas at all, no burned vegetation. Wayne could also see the emergency services at the train wreck. But I was getting uh mighty, mighty nervous. Because I'm watching those guys try to come right through the middle of that wreck where the gas is

Is the worst. There's twisted metal everywhere. So they could come a hundred and fifty yards either way and come through with no obstructions. I knew my dogs were getting sicker and sicker. And uh the one she just dearly loved me. She would not leave me for a second. The one dog that would not leave Mary's side is lying in the in the bedroom dying. Uh she's coughing up stuff. Just like I've been coughing up. It just looked like bloody hamburger or something.

Chlorine gas breaks down lung tissue. I told the other dogs to go outside. I'm going to open the gate. I told them, you know, you guys run to the southeast. as far as you can. Well Mary was coughing so bad she couldn't talk, but she grabbed my sleeve and kept pulling it and Well finally when she can talk, she says a dog doesn't know southeast from up. A member of a volunteer rescue team phoned Wayne. We received a phone call from some group of volunteers.

And he told me there's no gas to the southeast. We'll be coming in that way. We'll have four ATVs and four hours of oxygen. So it'll be 25, 20 minutes. And um so that really gave me some hope. One hour later a call comes in. And finally the phone rang, and it was one of these guys, and He told me, he says the deputies turned us back. They threatened to

Arrest us or fire on us, man. They won't look at our credentials, they won't let us talk to who's in charge. They don't even know who's in charge. The sheriff's office had cordoned off the entire area. Yeah, I was out of options. Everything I had tried did not work. At this time I thought I'm probably dying, but I'm not going to. No way I'm gonna die. And uh I'm starting to cough up nasty looking bloody stuff.

Mary was pretty bad off at this time and barely breathing. Are we gonna get any help here or not? Yes, yes, sir. Yes, we've done all that Okay. Yes, sir. Are you coming or not? Yes, they said the train is in the way and that that's the reason why it's taking long. Wayne decided to call a private rescue company. In fact I looked in the yellow pages and I found the I found there are such things as professional rescuers.

I did talk to two of the potential rescuers and one of them told me, he said, it'll take us two hours to get there. Are you sure you have two hours? Said, no, I'm not. I'm not sure that I have two hours. Can't you do it faster? He said, no, we have to go in by helicopter.

And I said, well, the sheriff's department won't let anybody in. He says, we don't care about that. He says, if we come to rescue you, we'll rescue you. But if you're gonna be dead, who's gonna pay us? I said, well, let me call you back. And I'm still running around left and right trying to come up with just one more option, just some way to get us out of there. And uh I could go in the kitchen and watch the appliances uh melt down or uh, go outside and hold my breath or

stay in the bedroom and hold my breath. I did all those things. Uh one o one of our sons, who was a volunteer farming in another county, uh was en route somewhere and just happened by and heard this on the radio. Wayne's son Charles called emergency services. This is Charles Hill. Yes, sir. Mom and Dad are they okay or we are having a hard time getting to them. Well can't they just land a helicopter in the backyard? No, sir, due to the chemicals that are involved.

Well can't they just put a gas mask on and go in there like a fire? Our officers, our fire department, and our EMS personnel are aware of your parents. And as soon as we can extricate them from the situation, we'll get them out. Well, if if I go over there can I just get a gas match and I'll go for myself? No, sir. You will be thrown off the scene and if you fight with the officers you will most likely be arrested.

He told the deputy, I'm going in anyway, and the deputy says, If you do, we'll arrest you. Arrest all you want to, I'm going in. He said, We'll shoot you.

He just gave up. The sheriff's department, we had some nice lady on the telephone. She told us, get in the shower and decontaminate yourselves. The rescuers will be there just within a minute or two. Can you do me a favor? Can you go into the shower? What am I supposed to do? Run the water on your body. But that's the best thing, so you can dec decontaminate yourself. Water mixed with chlorine gas turns into burning hydrochloric acid.

So in sheer desperation, I knew better than to get in the shower. I knew better than that. I knew better than to turn off the air conditioner. Well I was so desperate I did it anyway. Big mistake. Big time mistake. Uh I drugg Mary to the shower, uh, just turned the water on and got her soaked, and climbed right in behind her and soaked myself

My brother-in-law didn't even disturb him. Because I'm thinking this is the stupidest thing I've ever done. I can't believe I'm stupid enough to do it. Because with the introduction of that moisture to that room and no AC to pull it out, Within one or two minutes all the mirrors, all the windows, start getting a green haze on them.

and uh uh an a different odor, hydrochloric acid. Oh boy, this is really the end, you know. All the uh pale areas of my skin were all burned, and in some cases the skin came off. I I know my husband, he he was trying to keep me awake and uh I was real sick. Well, Mary stopped breathing, uh just gave up, wouldn't breathe anymore. I had to force her to breathe to give her C PR. This must have gone on for maybe forty five minutes, I'm not sure.

Help arrived almost seven hours after the train crash. And all of a sudden here's here's a city fireman in his spacesuit. Uh, he walks in the bedroom and he says, It's turned hydrochloric, everybody out They drug us all outside and hosed us down again and called in a helicopter and

Finally got us out of there. Wayne hadn't heard from his stepmother and stepsister since early that morning. One of the firemen asked me, does anybody live in this house down the road here? And I said, they've already been rescued. He said, nobody's been rescued from that house. At that point I knew they had to be dead. Well see, they pronounced me dead twice. And uh I didn't even know it. When I got to the hospital they said I was dead.

And then they revived me. Wayne's stepmother and stepsister died at the scene. His brother-in-law Robbie died four months later. Two of their three dogs also died. My wife and myself and that one dog are the only living things that survived in that area. I'm sorry, I get upset, but um thanks to God that I had my husband with me. And if it wasn't for him, nah, I don't think any of us would be here. I survived because I was too angry to die.

Here I'm watching the my loved ones die off and there's nothing I can do. Wayne and Mary have since reached an out-of-court settlement with Union Pacific Railroad, who were responsible for the tragedy. Every group has that friend who insists on doing things the hard way. You know the type, still paying for subscriptions they forgot they had, or hanging on to an old phone because it still works.

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It's June 2000 in Canyon County, Idaho. Linda is driving alone at night across rural Idaho. She is on her way to her family cabin in Utah for an annual retreat away from her husband and large extended family. I'd been driving probably for an hour and a half. And there weren't many cars on the road. It's a very isolated road. I was just driving on the freeway and just having a marvelous time singing.

uh being happy that I was on vacation and I looked to my left and there was a car With four young people in it. Had a They're gonna mess with me. I'm not gonna make eye contact and I speed it up and they speed it up and I slowed down and they slowed down. So they started pacing me. And then

On the passenger side of their car, two people leaned out. They had these large, like almost tree branches, very two two, three inches in diameter, and they moved their car sideways into mine and they started beating on my car. And I was just terrified and I I tried to slow down and pull around behind them and they turned their car perpendicular across both lanes of the freeway. There was no one else on the road. It was

2 30 in the morning. I could see all the trucks way far in the distance. And and I thought, well, if I could just get up there with them, I'll I'll be okay. And I was trying to get the windows rolled up and apparently I didn't roll up the window on the passenger side. because they pushed me off of the freeway basically and I stopped because I was terrified and I didn't know what to do. Linda was not carrying a cell phone.

So they jumped out of their car and the woman ran around to the passenger side of my car and just reached in the window and unlocked the door because I hadn't rolled the window up. And she reached over me, she had a knife, and she stuck it by my throat and the driver's door. The attackers were high on methamphetamine.

and she was yelling and screaming at me. They were screaming obscenities. They were screaming, Where's the money? Give us the money And they were just like wild animals. They were totally hyped up and their their anger and their Their wildness was was something I had never ever encountered before. It was like having a pack of wolves attacking me. and trying to defend myself from every side.

I couldn't understand why they were doing this. I didn't really feel um in danger, oddly enough. I didn't feel in danger. I felt I could talk my way out of anything. And this very large, um, Native American man with long greasy hair, who I later called greasy man,'cause he smelled bad and his face was just totally pockmarked and he he just was wild and he kept screaming and he had a knife and he put the knife to my throat and he grabbed me out of the car.

And I had bare feet'cause I drive barefooted. And he pulled me around the back of the car and I kept saying, S I don't have shoes on. Please, you know, slow down. You're hurting my feet. and he pushed me into the passenger side of the car, into the passenger seat in the front. And all this time I kept saying,

Um, why are you doing this? You know, stop. You're hurting me, you're hurting me. And he got in the driver's side behind the wheel of my car, and Greasy Man reached up his knife to my throat, and I grabbed his knife with my hand and pushed it away. and cut all the fingers of my violin hand. The other man yelled, We've got to get her car off of the freeway. And Greasy Man who was in the driver's site.

driver's side of my car. He started my car off and he followed the other car. And while he was doing that, he was reaching over at me with his knife and stabbing me just randomly in the chest. and he stabbed me five times and so by that time my hand was bleeding, my chest was bleeding, and they drove to a dark farm road, there was no lights, it was a beet field.

And so it was out in the middle of Idaho, in the middle of nowhere. I kept looking at them and the thing that struck me about the woman is she was so young and she was beautiful. And these these men were were older and they were greasy and dirty and I couldn't understand why she was with them. And at that point, uh, I turned to the woman in the back. I turned and looked over my left shoulder.

and I said to her, Please, please don't kill me. I I have a family. I want to live. And at that moment the man who was sitting behind me grabbed my hair and pulled my head back and cut my throat. And I remember thinking

This is not good. I mean it was a very rational thought. I was still very, very rational. I still felt that I could talk my way out of this. And the man who was sitting in the driver's seat said, Gimme your money, gimme your money and and he put his greasy hands in my pockets and he took my wedding ring off of my bloody finger.

and I had given him my wallet and it had my driver's license and forty dollars in it and he was furious that I only had forty dollars and and I turned back to the woman and said, Please don't kill me and she says, Well go ahead and beg me for your life. So I open the passenger side door. And I got out and I got on my knees and I looked into the car at these three people.

And I put my hands like this and I said, please don't kill me. Just take everything. I have a ch I have children. I have a family. I want to live. And at that moment the other man who'd driven their car came around from the back of the car and hey he had a baseball bat. And it was a metal baseball bat. And he said, okay, we're gonna kill her now.

And I remember just being so angry at her and saying, You said you weren't gonna kill me And she said she said, Well we're gonna do you a favor and we're gonna knock you out first and then we're gonna kill you. and so I I put my head on my arms on top of the car and the third man bashed my head in with the baseball bat and I fell on the ground, face down. And I was face down in the dirt and I felt like someone was pounding on my back.

And I found out later that I'd been stabbed s 17 times in my back. And it that was the first moment where I really If I don't pretend to be dead, They're going to really kill me.

if I could tell their car was leaving, I saw lights leaving and I was left in the dark, in the beet field. The moon was full, so I could see that I was in a a beet field and at that point I sat up and leaned against my car. And I looked into my car to see if the keys were there. I don't remember if I saw them there. I somehow had the thought that I could get in my car and drive away and save myself.

At that moment, I saw a car coming. I saw headlights approaching my car. And I waved my hand, come help me, please. And it was these people come back. And the greasy man came up to And he said, Oh, so you think you're strong? Because he was surprised that I was still alive. And he took his knife and he slashed open my shoulder and they beat me with the metal baseball bat again and I fell face down. the on the earth. My body was on the ground. My legs were under the car.

And then I heard this whoosh sound, and they had set the car on fire. They'd used some kind of flammable liquid and uh set the car on fire and they drove away. And I thought Uh, I may be going to die, but they're not gonna burn up my body. And the fireman roll that they teach us in school, drop and roll, I rolled out into the beet field.

And the thing I remember about that, it was June. The beet field had just been freshly furrowed. The beet shoots were about three inches high, and beet shoots are like sticks. And I remember rolling over these sticks and thinking how much that hurt. Linda had her throat cut and 22 stab wounds. She also had punctured lungs and a fractured skull. And I remember smelling the earth and just smelling that rich loam of fresh dirt and I I gathered the dirt under my head and I made a pillow.

and I consciously thought, uh, I'm going to prepare to die. Linda had lost so much blood, she was at the clinical boundary between life and death. And at that moment, um very bright white light surrounded me. And it felt like I was lifted up in the arms of my Heavenly Father. It felt like he had rescued me and lifted me up, and I felt at peace.

The white light experience is often described by people close to death. One explanation is that it is caused by a lack of oxygen and chemical changes in the brain. And I wasn't thinking about my family or my children or my husband or anything. I was thinking how peaceful I felt and how ready I was to go with him. And I heard voices again. And I had the thought, oh, they've come back again to make sure I'm dead. And something told me, no, these are teenage voices. These aren't the same voices.

And these two teenage boys had been driving home from watching videos. and they'd seen the car fire out in the field and so they'd called the fire department and then as teenage boys do they wanted to come down and see the fire. They thought it was cool. And I heard them and I yelled, Help me, help me, I'm out here.

And they came out in the field and found me and they each grabbed a an arm and a leg and they dragged me Probably fifty feet away from the car before the gas um before the fire hit the gas line and the car blew up. and uh in pulling me away they they dislocated my shoulders. Um but they saved my life.

It took two years to track down Linda's attackers. Three of the attackers are serving life sentences for kidnapping, robbery, and attempted murder. A fourth is serving ten years for robbery and aggravated assault. The attackers setting the car on fire was what saved my life. Because if I'd just been out in the beat field, I would have just bled to death and died and nobody would have ever known what happened and those people would have never been found. During the week, my schedule is packed.

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It's August 1997 in Lexington, Kentucky. Holly and her boyfriend Chris are at a college party. Party was rather dull, um, not a whole lot going on, so we decided to leave Just go take a walk to the railroad tracks that were about two blocks away. Um and actually two of our other friends came with us. We were planning to go put quarters on the railroad tracks to flatten them. It was close to midnight.

Our friends actually decided to go back to the party when after about an hour no trains had come by and so Chris and I stayed there for a little while and talked and then we when we got up to leave that's when a man approached us. And we were actually walking on the railroad tracks. And the man came from behind an electrical box like he had been hiding behind an electrical box.

Well we never saw a gun. Um he had some kind of ice pick or screwdriver or somet something sharp. That was his weapon. He just automatically a you know was asking for money. When you're confronted with someone that is wanting something from you that you can comply and that you especially if a weapon is involved, that you just comply and give them what they want and they'll leave you alone. The attacker forced Holly and Chris to their knees.

Really the first thing that we said to him was, you know, we don't have money and when he started going through the backpack we said, you know, would you like us to go get money? You can have our credit card, you can have anything you want here He tied Chris's arms behind his back. He was only about 5'6, but Chris was very skinny and, you know, very tall but very skinny, so they probably weighed close to the same. Chris did not fight back.

You know, one thing if I could describe uh about Chris is that I don't know if he had ever killed a fly. I don't think he'd ever been in a fight in his life and you know, with Chris be feeling threatened and complying, that made me feel afraid. Really, you know, all the time he was controlling Chris. He wasn't really controlling me.

I was just following along'cause I thought, you know, maybe I can stop you know, h s you know, stop something from happening here. I just there was no way I was gonna try to run away or, you know, leave Chris there. He tied up Chris's arms first and he even pulled Chris into uh the grass beside the railroad tracks. And, you know, I saw that that was painful and so I just sorta crawled along

and and did the same thing. We were on our knees at that point and he had actually taken my belt and tied up my arms with my belt. You could tell that he had done this before. He knew how to control us. He knew he needed to tie us up. He knew that he needed to disable Chris. And so, you know, everything that he did you could tell he had done it before. Unknown to Holly and Chris, the attacker was a serial killer.

He had a bag with him that I saw that he kept going back to and he actually went back to that bag and I heard him ripping a shirt and that's what he tied up our legs with was with a ripped shirt and that he gagged us with with a ripped shirt. And when he gagged us I actually stuck my tongue out. so that the gag wouldn't work, so I could continue talking to him

And I did. I I you know was just asking him questions like why why he was there. And he was telling crazy stories like he had just broken out of jail and he was waiting on his friend and his friend was gonna be coming back with some food for him and I mean just Not n nothing really made sense.

We were sort of on a hill. So we were down at kind of at the bottom of the hill and and and the railroad tracks were up um from where we were laying. So uh he would go back up to a bag or whatever he had, you know, with him And so any time he'd go back up I would try to that's when I would try to untie myself. But he he never left our side longer of than a just a few minutes. Uh so any time, you know, I was

trying to strategize on what we were gonna do. It was only a f a few minutes time before he would come back. Well, I'm not really sure how much time passed before he came with a a rock to hit Chris. And it was a fifty two pound rock, so he was not carrying it carrying it easily. But he hit Chris, you know, on his head. I mean, it was just d like a dream. It was, you know, I I didn't know really

what was gonna happen to me. I actually heard Chris gurgling um after he had hit him, so I asked him to go and turn Chris's head to the side because I didn't want him to choke on his own blood. Um and he actually went and did it. And he said, Don't worry about him, he's gone.

I remember a lot more of talking to him after he had hit Chris because I think that I went into a survival mode after he had hit Chris. I didn't even think about the fact that he wanted that he was going to rape me um until he actually climbed on top of me. And I tried to fight him. I basically was, you know, screaming and and trying to hit him and um that's he stabbed me in my neck and said, Look how easily I could kill you

I felt like I was floating above my body. I did not feel anything. He had just stabbed me in my neck and I didn't feel that. I you know, I wasn't feeling pain. I wasn't feeling anything. He took off my my pants. But that was all. He didn't completely undress me. Even after he raped me I asked him to put my pants back on because I thought, you know, if I'm gonna if he's gonna kill me, I don't wanna be found laying here naked. So he even put my pants back on after he attacked me.

So, you know, he was at that point he was doing things and I really thought he was gonna let me go. at that time like I asked him what his name was and he asked me what my name was. I was just trying to make him

know that I was a person. I was, you know, trying to get hit to it. If he had an emotional side, I was trying to get to it. And I was saying, you know, I really wanna see my family again. I really want to see my friends and, you know, th I I'll I I won't turn you in. I'll uh I'll just, you know

Leave leave and I won't tell anybody that you did this. So, you know, my mind was trying to do anything to just make him stop. And I was I was begging for my life. I was telling him that I wanted to see my friends and family again, that I you know, did not want to die. you know, the moment when before he hit me, I really thought that I had convinced him that he wasn't going to hurt me, that he was going to leave me there.

he hit me in my face and I think what I did was I turned over to to stop him from hitting me in the face and so he hit me about five times in the back of my head. I thought I remembered him covering me up with you know, like branches and and grass and things and then I I thought I r I r even remember saying like thank you because I knew that I was still alive and that I I was saying thank you for leaving me here alive. Um but

You know, I I don't think he knew that I was still alive. I think he definitely tried to kill me. Really the next memory that I have was appearing in someone's front yard. You know, I was covered in blood and I didn't knock, I didn't ring a doorbell, I just walked into this person's house. I remember saying, you know, I I I've been hurt. My my friend is still out at the railroad tracks. We need help.

And I'm sh I I don't really m remember exactly, but I said to call nine one one and you know, that I definitely was going into shot When they finally told me about Chris, it wasn't the hospital didn't tell me. My parents had arrived and I turned to my dad and I said, I didn't say, Is Chris dead? I just said Chris is dead, isn't he?'Cause I knew it. Holly's boyfriend Chris died at the scene. I survived because I was supposed to.

I think that, you know, I I just wasn't finished. Holly is the only known survivor of the railroad serial killer, Angel Matarino Ricendez, who is suspected of murdering more than nine people. He was executed in 2006 for a murder he committed in Texas. I believe that there are several ways that, you know, a a tragic event like this can change you. I I really felt like I had two options. I could crawl in a hole and, you know, be angry and

my life th that way the rest of my life. And then my other option was to try to, you know, do the best I could with my second chance at life. And I survived to uh dedicate my life to um assisting uh victims. rape and sexual assault and and tragedy. That's I think that's my purpose. Finding the one can feel impossible. And in today's world it's even harder. False profiles, inaccurate pictures, incompatibilities, ghosting on dates. Is this sounding familiar?

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