(Trinidad Guardian) – As she was jogging along a nature trail, a woman was suddenly set upon by two men with a shotgun who yanked at her hair and cuffed her about the face and body.
One of the assailants then forced her to lower her pants, while the other pulled at her jersey. She knew that rape was next.
Although afraid, the woman quickly envisioned an escape plan. She threw herself down a slope, rolled down a bushy knoll and wandered through a dark thicket until being rescued by a forest ranger monitoring bush fires.
Recalling her harrowing ordeal, momentarily pausing to choke back tears, she told the Guardian that one of the assailants became enraged after he demanded money and she replied she was from a poor family. “He steups and said, ‘All you always from a poor family,’” the woman said.
Forced to hand over her car keys and iPhone, she was then ordered to unzip and pull down her pants.
“I was trembling. I unzip it a little way and I started to cry,” she said. “One of the men, the older one who look like he was in his 40s, started to cuff me in my head. “I fell to the ground because I was trying to secure my clothes. But he kept cuffing me saying ‘shut-up,’ you making too much noise,’” the woman recounted.
As one of the assailants pointed the gun at her face and the other attempted to rip off her clothes, the woman was faced with two choices.
Either be raped and probably killed or escape.
“I decided to throw myself off the cliff, because I could not handle being raped,” she said “I began to roll and roll until I reached down in the valley.” Bruised and sore, the woman then found herself wandering through thick bushes and trees.
Without a sense of direction, she was, however, determined to make it out alive. “I don’t know where the strength came from, but I got up and I started to walk…It was like jungle, only trees and vine,” she said.
“Every step I took I had to stop because the leaves on the ground would make a noise. “I had to listen if the men were coming after me.” For 45 tortuous minutes, she was trapped in the bushes.
She finally stumbled upon a forest ranger who led her to safety.
