An Alabama nursing student is sharing the harrowing story of how she was kidnapped and then made a daring escape after she used the light from her insulin pump to find the latch of the trunk she was locked in before jumping out to safety.
According to NBC News, 25-year-old Brittany Diggs was kidnapped last Tuesday at gunpoint outside her apartment and forced to drive around Birmingham with her kidnapper. The gunman threatened to kill her and tried to withdraw cash from her bank accounts using her ATM card.
Eventually the assailant locked Diggs in the trunk of her own car.
“The whole time he’s driving, he’s, like, just, he’s yelling at me from the front seat: ‘You’re lying. I know you have something. Give me your money,’” she told the news station.
It was when the gunman drove up to a gas station in Diggs’ Nissan Altima that her daring dash was caught on surveillance footage. The nursing student can be seen jumping out of the moving vehicle and rolling on the ground before scrambling to her feet and running away.
“I just got the bright idea to use my insulin-pump light, which is not a bright light, but it was bright enough to see,” Diggs said. “So I had to put it right on top of it to look and see for the latch.
“I’m holding the latch like this, waiting for him to get back in the car. He gets in [and] he’s yelling ... and I feel the car reversing, and he’s pulling out pretty fast, so I’m, like, ‘Oh shoot—I better get out of here,’” she added.
Diggs ran inside the gas station and was helped by owner Yosef Al Sabah, who saw the whole thing unfold.
“As he was leaving, I saw the trunk popped up and a woman jumped out of the trunk and came inside the store. I let her inside a safe place and locked the door and called the police,” Al Sabah told NBC affiliate WVTM.
The gunman is still at large, officials say, and Diggs has no interest in remaining in town to see what becomes of him.
“He had my phone, keys, car, everything. Gone. Like, I literally just had a jacket,” Diggs said. “I don’t feel safe there.”
A GoFundMe has been set up by a friend to help Diggs raise money to relocate. In three days, the campaign has raised a whopping $30,535, surpassing the original $7,000 goal.
Read more at NBC News.