True Crime
I Didn't Want Myself Or My Daughter To End Up In A Million Pieces
In this gripping episode of 'I Survived,' Marissa Pinson recounts the harrowing experience of Michelle, a bank manager whose life is turned upside down when armed intruders invade her home, ...
I Didn't Want Myself Or My Daughter To End Up In A Million Pieces
True Crime •
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Interactive Transcript
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Hi, I survived listeners. I'm Marissa Pinson. And if you're enjoying this show, I just want to remind you that episodes of I survived as well as the A&E Classic podcast, cold case files, city confidential and American justice are all available, add free on the new A&E Crime and investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just 499 a month or 3999 year. And now onto the show.
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This episode contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
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They grabbed me by my hair and put guns to my head and forced me face down on the floor. Real people.
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We had cuts both of us all over our bodies. I mean, just the pain we were in just was excruciating.
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Who faced death?
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You being the water for 20 minutes and nice and narrow seas sharks swimming around you.
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And live to tell how they said you're going to clean out the vault for us or your daughter will be murdered and you will watch and you will be next.
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This is I survived.
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It's November 2000 in East Vista, California. Michelle is an assistant vice president of a bank and a single mom.
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It started out as a very normal day rushing out the door getting my daughter to school, getting to work, a lot of loan documents that day I remember.
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And one thing really stood out during the day is a gentleman came in that just seemed odd.
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And that was really the only thing that stood out and after he left I didn't think anything else about it.
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After work, Michelle picked up her seven year old daughter, Brea, from school.
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Before making dinner I thought it would be a good idea to just relax on the couch and have a little fun.
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And we sat down on the couch and she took my boots off and we were just laughing and giggling.
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And the next thing I heard was the most unbelievable loud, thundering sound.
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Just one big crash or boom or just thundering sound that I cannot explain in words and turned in the direction of that noise and saw them coming in.
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And it's a spot style all dressed in black and masks and guns and wood was everywhere and they had kicked in the door and broke right through the lock and everything.
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Three armed men had broken into her house and when I turned towards Brea who was to my left at the time, she was running towards the bedroom and before I could even get up and go to move with her.
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It was that quick that they grabbed me by my hair and put guns to my head and forced me face down on the floor.
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I was screaming no, no, no.
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And they were telling me to be quiet.
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Don't make us pistol whip you in front of your kid.
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They were saying, do you know why we're here?
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We know that you're the manager of the bank down the street.
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We are going to be here with you all night long until you get it into your head that exactly what we want you to do.
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You're going to clean out the vault for us or your daughter will be murdered and you will watch and you will be next.
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The largest man of the three was on my back with his knee and my back and I could hear duct tape unrolling.
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I could feel myself being duct taped and I could hear the duct tape continue to unroll once I was taped.
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So I knew that they were probably taping my daughter as well.
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I was just asking them where is my daughter, where is she?
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And I'll do anything.
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They were asking me questions and saying we already know the answers.
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We're checking to see if you're going to lie to us.
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So that's when they began asking questions about when does Brink's drop off money in the morning?
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We need you to get this much money, how much money's in the vault.
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And they said, we've been watching everything you do.
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We know where you eat, we know where you get ice cream, we know where your daughter goes to school.
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They had been casing the bank and me for two months.
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Michelle was begging to see her seven-year-old daughter.
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When I first saw her was when they pulled me up to my knees and spun me around.
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And I saw that she was laying on the floor face down.
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She was duct taped and one of the men was standing over her with a gun pointing down at her.
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And she wasn't talking and I just wanted to run to her.
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And you could tell she was just in absolute shock and terror and shaking.
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And at the time she was only seven years old, they had a duffel bag filled with ammunition, filled with, they all had guns.
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And the ringleader pulled out a bag and came over and pulled out what looked like dynamite, sticks of dynamite, and said, what does this look like?
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And I said it looks like dynamite. And he said, that's exactly what it is.
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And we're going to put these on your body, we're going to put these on your daughter's body and show us a detonation device.
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And said, if you do not do every single thing we tell you to do and do everything right with no mistakes, you will disintegrate.
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Almost immediately, I kicked into paying attention to every single little detail.
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Face down on the carpet, I noticed he was wearing black, dark, martin boots.
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When I was pulled up to my knees, I began noticing the types of clothing that were wearing or the little tags on the back of their pants.
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I started immediately grabbing hold of anything I could have control over so that in case we did make it out alive and survive this, I could do whatever I could possibly do to help the police apprehend them.
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They would ask me to repeat their plan back to them. What are you going to do? This is what you're going to do.
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So I would repeat their words and their plan back to them.
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Their language throughout the night was just very sexually explicit. They were saying, we want to do this, this, and this to you.
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I was just so scared that they were going to rape myself or my daughter.
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They were in constant contact with who they said was a team of people, six people outside of the house on walkie talkies, saying money one to money two, money two to money three.
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So that was sort of their demeanor and their language throughout the night.
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Eventually the intruders allowed Bria to join Michelle on the couch.
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And I was just stroking her hair and telling her I loved her and I was just crying. I mean I was just crying the whole time.
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And she was shaking and just curled up and we sat there for a really long time until I let them know I needed to use, I needed to go to the bathroom.
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And the ringleader, the short, stalky one said, I will take her. And he took me to the restroom.
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And when I saw this person's eyes with the bathroom light on, I knew that it was the same man that had been in my bank that day.
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That was the odd man that, you know, I was very uncomfortable around him when he was at my desk that day.
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One of the most disturbing things about him at my desk or one of the things that made me the most uncomfortable were his eyes.
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He had very distinct, large, round, bulging, red, almost droopy, watery eyes, really distinctive eyes.
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And so for me to turn the light on in the bathroom and see those very distinct set of eyes was just, I mean it was like a light one on.
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And I sort of flashed back to him giving me a business card. I put it in my top right drawer of my desk.
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And right then I counted the tiles on the bathroom wall to know how tall he was.
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I went back into the living room and told my daughter right then at that time, sweetie, if we make it out alive, everything's going to be okay.
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At 11.30pm, Michelle's roommate returned home from a party.
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My roommate came in and they grabbed her and drug her into her room.
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She was screaming, get out of my house, how dare you. She was cussing at them and calling them all kinds of vulgar names.
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And she was very intoxicated and really heightened their level of aggression.
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They began pacing, they began holding guns in our faces, put the gun right up her nose and told her she needed to listen and told her that they were going to blow her head off if she did not cooperate.
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It was about 4.30 in the morning when my daughter said, Mommy, I want to go lay in your bed. Please can we go lay in your bed?
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You know, that was our little sanctuary.
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So I asked them, can I please take her into my room? Can we please just go lay down in the room for a little while?
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And the ringleader said yes and sat at the end of the bed watching us with the gun at us while we were able to go in there and just rest and lay in my bed for a little while.
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And I was just smelling her hair and stroking her hair.
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You know, when you're just there and you're with your child and you're holding your child and you don't know if this is the very last time you're ever going to be able to hold them.
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It's really, really excruciating.
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The ringleader came over and stood over me at about 6.30 and said time to get up, time to get ready for work.
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The men said they'd kill them all unless Michelle robbed her bank where she worked.
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I was blow drying my hair and he was watching and he unplugged the blow dryer and said that's good and it's time to put the dynamite on your body.
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And they brought the dynamite in and the big guy was the one who actually brought it in and duct taped it to my back.
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Really, really tied into my ribs to where you couldn't hardly breathe. It was really painful.
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The intruders strapped two sticks of dynamite onto Michelle.
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And they said it's time to put it on your daughter and they did the same thing to her.
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That's the only, that's when she really started to tear up because it was so painful.
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Want me at hurts, want me at hurts. What are they putting on me? I didn't want to tell, you know, of course I wasn't going to say it's explosives.
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I said it's just something so that they'll be able to keep track of where you are and everything's going to be okay.
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And it was right then when the ringleader took my arm, said let's go to the living room, sat me on the couch and said you have 10 minutes to say everything you need to say to your daughter because this is going to be the last time you'll ever see or alive if you mess this up.
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We were on the couch together and I was just telling her that she was, she's perfect for me, that she was exactly everything I'd ever hope for when I planned to be a mom.
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And then he came out and he said time to put your daughter in the closet and let us into her room where he forced her into the closet.
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I just couldn't imagine her in the closet, you know what I mean? Just sitting there sort of waiting to explode and I just wanted to keep her mind off of that and somehow give her something.
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You know, so I got her a little piece of paper and pen and just said right mommy a note, right mommy a letter because I'm coming back and I'll pinky promise I'll be back as soon as I can.
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And she said don't go and that was when she started crying and screaming for the very first time please don't leave me, please don't go and in that moment I just became totally robotic, totally numb, checked out.
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The only way I got through that moment is knowing that I had to go do everything they told me to do to perfection without any mistakes to save her life and get back to her.
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I just remember him grabbing my arm and saying time to go to work and I stood up and I turned and just started walking towards the door and I could hear her screaming going no mommy no don't leave don't leave me and just wailing and crying for the first time.
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And with every step that I took towards the door that was it was fading.
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Michelle and her daughter have been strapped with explosives by gunmen.
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Michelle has been taken at gunpoint to rob the bank where she works.
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When I walked into the bank and went immediately over to my desk.
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I pulled, I opened up that right hand drawer and I saw his card sitting there.
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I shut the drawer and I immediately picked up the phone to call and check on voicemail.
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Michelle had been warned not to use the phone and not to call the police.
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Which is when I just immediately hung up and thought, oh my gosh I wasn't supposed to use the phone.
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I already made a mistake. I messed up what's going to happen and am I going to blow up any minute now.
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And I was just frozen there for a second and staring at the picture of my daughter on my desk.
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And just, you just die inside. You just die inside.
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I was just wandering around the bank with dynamite on my body not knowing what to do, not knowing what to say, trying to help my employees as much as I could without alerting them.
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Because I didn't want my daughter or myself or my roommate to end up in a million pieces.
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The Brings truck dropped off the money at the bank. Michelle went into the vault with a colleague.
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I brought one of my employees in there with me because everything's in dual control.
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I had to tell her this is what's going on, this is what happened all night. I lifted my shirt.
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I showed her the dynamite on my back and said, if there's any kind of serial numbers or any kind of distinctive markings, write it down as evidence.
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And please wait until I call you and I know my daughter's alive before you call the police or we might be blown up.
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She began to panic. I actually had to calm her down and say just calm down.
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You can do this. Call corporate security. Do not call the police. My daughters in a closet. My roommates duct taped with dynamite.
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Please do not do anything that is going to jeopardize our lives any further.
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Michelle began to put money in a duffel bag. I didn't know how much money I was grabbing. I didn't know how much money I was giving them.
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I had absolutely no idea.
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Michelle had taken $340,000.
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During the course of the night when they were going over their instructions over and over and over, they continually said, you need to put it in a specific order.
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Hundreds, 50s, 20s, tens, the rest on top. They specifically said no funny money, no marked money.
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If we find out that you put any of that, any marked money in the bag, don't make us have to come back here and kill you.
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Don't make us have to come back here to hurt you.
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So there was no way I was going to do anything to further jeopardize my life, my daughter's life, my roommate's life.
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I was going to do everything in my power to do everything perfect and write exactly the way they said it.
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Whether or not it was against bank policy or not.
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So I come out of the bank and I throw the double bag full of money into the passenger seat.
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Michelle drove the gunmen to a drop off point and is then told to drive home.
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At this point, I had been away from my daughter for approximately an hour and getting into my car and driving with the stick still on my back,
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not knowing if she's dead or alive. What am I going to find when I get home?
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Wanting to get there as fast as I could, wanting to alert anybody at the stoplights that I could and just...
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There's so many things going through my mind and I had to drive past the bank to get back to my house, which was only about two miles away.
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So in driving up the back roads and through the windy roads to get home and as soon as I drove up, my roommate's car was gone.
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They had barricaded the front door with the chairs and I just had to struggle my way in and scream, hello, hello.
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And that's when I heard my daughter say, Mommy, we're back here.
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Just hearing her voice was just...
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My adrenaline was so high. I was just got done forcing my way in the door and knowing that she's alive and getting back there just to figure out what to do as she still duct taped is...
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Do we all still have dynamite on us?
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I ran into the bedroom and my daughter was still curled up in the closet. My roommate was still on the bed and I immediately ran to my daughter, just grabbing her face and kissing her and said,
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that is the dynamite still on you, no mommy, they took it off, but she still had duct tape on her hands and her feet.
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So I immediately began to get that off of her feet and her hands and then we both began to untap and duct tape my roommate who was on the bed.
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And I told them, the dynamite's still on me, you guys need to go for help.
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You guys go for help, I'll stay here. I don't know if this thing's going to detonate, I don't know what's going to happen.
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And my daughter was going, no mommy, no, I'm not leaving you, my roommate said, Michelle, they took it off of our body so fast they just carelessly ripped it off of our bodies.
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I know I can do this. And I was saying, no, just go run for help and she's like, let me just cut it off of you.
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And at that point I just wanted it off my body. I was saying, just take it off of me, just get it off of me.
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And she ran and got scissors and cut it off of me and took the duct tape and the dynamite and put it outside on the retaining wall.
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And we ran to the neighbors for help.
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We began recalling a lot, a lot of detail and the FBI and the police were really, really happy.
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But I immediately began to tell them to cover my desk and get the card out of the right hand drawer of my desk that I know that one of the people who did this to us was a man named Christopher Butler.
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The men were captured within nine days. Christopher Butler was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 64 years for kidnapping and armed robbery.
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His accomplices received life sentences plus 32 years.
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It's never over for survivors. Even though we did survive and we're choosing a very positive path, it doesn't mean that we don't have to cope with the effects of a violent crime.
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We don't have to face any more victimization almost every day of our lives. Michelle never returned to her house or to her bank job.
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She and her daughter suffered severe post-traumatic stress.
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I survived because I'm my daughter's mother. And I survived because there's so much more life to live for me.
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It's April 2004 in Charleston, South Carolina. Troy and Josh set out for a fishing trip in their boat.
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Well Troy and I have gone fishing probably hundreds of times. We used to live in a neighborhood that was backed up to the water.
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The boat that Troy and I had was just an old fire-wheel-ass sailboat that Monica had given to me that we were fixing up just for fishing.
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We were going to go take the boat to the beach and we're just going to have a short little fishing trip because it was on a Sunday. I had school the next day.
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Troy was 15 and Josh was 17.
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We didn't take any food because we didn't plan on being out there for a long time. We plan on going for about an hour to fish for anything really.
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The boys had never fished before in the inlet.
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We were just trying to get into some deeper water because sharks will come and swim and eat bait that gets stuck in the lagoon and stuff.
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We were just pattling around.
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We were probably 30, 40 minutes after we put in. We started getting caught in the current which led us out to the ocean.
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We tried to paddle off to the side. We tried to fight it but every time you paddle it just turned the boat around on you.
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You couldn't control the boat at all. And eventually pulled us into the root current which actually just shot straight out to the ocean.
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We had no sails on the boat. We had no motor. It was just the frame, the body of the boat. Us and we had some paddles. We had a total of four paddles.
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When the boat started drifting away and getting into that rough current, I started laughing. Josh started yelling at me and telling me we got to get out of it.
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I was laughing and thought it was all fun because the waves were bouncing us around and whatnot.
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Then it started sucking us away.
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A rip current pulls water from the shore out to the sea as fast as eight feet a second.
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I knew what a rip current was but I really didn't know the seriousness of it because I never experienced how powerful it was until that day.
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Rip currents caused nearly 100 deaths a year.
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Then I looked back at the beach and then we were just a couple hundred yards off the beach line.
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Then I realized we're not getting out of this palin.
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Both boys had left their cell phones in their truck.
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When we first realized we were in trouble, I really didn't worry about it too much.
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I figured that once 6-7 o'clock our parents would realize that something might happen. They'll be looking for us.
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I wasn't too worried. The water was really cold.
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When we first got into the current, the sand bar wasn't very far away from us.
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The sand bar was 100 yards away.
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I jumped in with a rope trying to swim back to the sand bar which I figured if we got to the sand bar I could pull the boat back with us.
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But I was halfway there and Troy looked like he was about to drown and he just couldn't swim no more.
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I started paying again. My hands started becoming numb. I'd actually bite my finger and I couldn't feel anything.
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I ended up turning back around trying to help Troy and all that.
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Once we realized we couldn't swim against the current, we just spared the best bet. It was to stay with the boat.
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We screamed for help for a long time and no one saw us and we just drifted all the way off the beach line where we couldn't see the beach no more.
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On board, the boys had some fishing gear.
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Josh, he decided to do a wide-waste time with this fish while we were out here. He thought he saw a fin so he wanted to go fish and a wave hit the boat and he fell and lost his balance.
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I lost my pole in the water because I knocked me over and I dropped the pole and my tackle box and my bait all went out the side of the boat.
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We had no fish and bulls but no hooks and no bait.
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You got really, really mad and just started cussing and throwing stuff off the boat and like crazy man.
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I felt bad that we made that mistake and I should have been responsible on saying we shouldn't go out there because something could happen.
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But we just didn't think about the time we were excited we were going fishing.
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Well the first night that we were out there was really cold. It went down to a record temperature at that time of year, it was below freezing.
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The boys didn't have any warm clothing.
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My hands were not in blue, I couldn't feel anything, I was shivering uncontrollably. We hugged each other to get body heat.
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Even when we were laying down, we just, you know, peed right where we were just so we could get warm and just for that five minutes.
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But then when the water came back in the boat, it would wash the peel away so we got cold again.
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The waves were just very choppy and they were huge swells. I mean it was just like it was a big beast and we couldn't do anything.
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We're just, you know, how to fight as much as possible.
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The boat was 14 feet long.
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It's an unsinkable boat. You can't think of it even if it broke in half.
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It's got a sealed hull which is filled with foam and so they had what called self-failing where the water came in and it goes out by itself instead of having a pump on it.
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It had two little holes down at the bottom of it so water would come in and it would go back out and it was just like an ongoing process.
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And sometimes when the waves, you know, because it was rough, the wave would come over on the boat, we'd have to get out and open the bail holes up, let the water run out and then scoop the rest of it out.
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But it'd be constantly wet the whole time.
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On the second day, the first thing that we did, you know, we looked to see if we could see anybody, any boats, any land, and unfortunately we didn't.
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And we realized, well, maybe that they didn't search, you know, last night there was waiting for a new day and then they're going to start searching.
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The Coast Guard was searching off the South Carolina coast, but the boys had been swept farther north.
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Well, during the second day, you know, we were both hungry, we hadn't eaten since that morning, which we didn't even eat a good breakfast.
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You know, so we were talking about food, we were talking about drinks, you know, you're out in the ocean and the water looks like, you know, a blue gatorade that you wish you could drink but you can't.
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The salt and sea water dehydrate cells in the body.
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We had one little hook in the boat. I mean, it wasn't even, it was just the tiniest little hook for a little baby fish.
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And we actually peeled pieces of skin off our finger and tried to catch like a little fish or something with it.
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Of course, they didn't just grab it and the hook was so small, it couldn't eat, it wouldn't done any good anyways.
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During the day, the temperature went up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
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I jumped into water and swam around. Of course, we couldn't stay there long because you'd be in the water for 20 minutes.
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It's a nice, you know, you'll see sharks swimming around you.
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But when that night came and we didn't see nobody the second day, you know, my hope really got blasted away.
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I told Josh, I said, that's not good, you know, it's the second night and no one's, you know, we haven't seen nobody.
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Bye.
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We're going to make it too much longer. We're tired, we're worn out, we had no food, no water dehydrated.
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We, we'd gore gore saw salt water, try to keep our mouths, you know, some type of moisture in there but they didn't just dry your mouth out even worse.
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Normally the body needs 2.6 quarts of fluid a day.
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We were getting nervous, you know, we didn't think we were anyone was going to find us.
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We've seen tugboats go by, they were just really far from us and since our boat was so small, we were like a meal and haste that compared to them.
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But I mean, we waved at everyone we saw and screamed and yelled, but I mean, it just never worked.
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We tried to actually keep our hopes up, you know, saying that, you know, we got one of us that we would have been dead already, you know.
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Somebody's in the finest shortly, it's not going to take much longer.
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The boys' parents feared they had drowned.
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Josh and I, we cry all the time. We cry mainly because of our family and our friends that we wouldn't, you know, ever get to see them again.
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It was horrible.
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Troy and Josh have had no food or water for three days.
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When I would think about food, it would hurt just as bad because I mean, I like to eat and I'm a big guy.
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You know, me not having food is not good because I get really mad and I get frustrated.
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I mean, I was starving. You know, I just would think about, I even thought about one time to cut my own finger off.
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I told Josh, you know, if he would do it just to have something to chew on.
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I wouldn't hallucinate or anything. I just needed something in my mouth, something with meat on it, just to chew.
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And Josh, you know, he'd tell me to shut up and that he won't going to do it, you know.
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And that, you know, if I keep asking him or saying anything about it, that he's going to knock me out, you know.
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You can't want talking about it.
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And finally, I had to take the night away from him because I didn't trust him.
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I figured if I'd turn my back, he might be over there, saw on his finger off.
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Troy gives, if you die, do you want me to eat you?
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I said, I really don't care if you eat me or not.
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I said, just take my clothes off and throw me in the water.
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And so we were, he was pretty hungry, you know. He's always been a big year.
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You know, there was nothing out there in the ocean to block the sun from you.
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You know, so basically you're sitting directly under it.
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You were, it was pretty warm, you know.
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And you're laying on that boat, getting all the heat, you know.
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The sun and seawater dried their skin and caused painful cuts.
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My whole body was aching. My face was burnt, you know, really, really bad.
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We had cuts both of us all over our bodies.
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I mean, just the pain we were in just was excruciating.
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I mean, it was just horrible. The saltwater was getting cuts and with staying really, really bad and burned.
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I was drinking saltwater when Josh told me not to, but I mean, you know, I kind of would sneak it here and there.
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And he knew that, you know, it wasn't good for me.
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And I knew it wasn't good for me. But I mean, what can you do when it's nice and cold and blue?
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And it looks like a gridter. He just wanted to drink it.
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He just had something that texture in your mouth.
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Drinking seawater increases the chance of death by 36%.
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They are now entering the fourth night at sea.
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On the fourth night, there was no wage period.
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I mean, it was like a huge lake that was glassy.
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And I'd never seen an ocean so calm in my life.
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But I had a really, really, you know, awkward feeling that said, you know,
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this something is not right about the night.
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I told Josh about it. I said, you know, something's telling me that tonight, you know,
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something's going to end up happening. You know, I just don't feel right.
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And so I said, well, let's just start praying, you know, and he said, all right, off-ray.
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We just dozed off.
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I heard a real loud noise and I looked up and it was just the front of a cargo ship.
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It looked like a hotel.
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It was, you know, just so tall and it was, you know, coming right at us.
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And I, so I couldn't even say nothing. I was stunned, you know.
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I thought we were getting ready to get crushed by this boat.
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And I just grabbed Troy's leg and his squeeze as hard as they could.
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And then he came out and looked at it. And I mean, both of us were just speechless.
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So we pretty much thought we were getting ready to get crushed.
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It's a huge cargo ship that was right next to us.
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I mean, it was a crazy experience just seeing something that big, that close to you.
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The way you come off the front of the boat eventually just pushed us off to the side.
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And, you know, we started yelling and everything else.
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I was trying to take the anchor. I was trying to get it untangled.
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I wasn't trying to throw it off to the side of the boat.
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It's hopefully hooked to something.
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But I couldn't get anything, you know, couldn't see no anybody.
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After about the fifth day, I finally, every time we saw a boat, I wouldn't even care.
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I wouldn't even look at them.
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Because we've seen so many boats and they just pass right by.
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You know, the ocean's so big, there's no way of tracking where we are.
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So we just figured that there's no, they hadn't found us yet. They're not going to find us.
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After about the fourth day, I knew I was waiting to die.
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In fact, I asked God, I was like, why haven't I died? You know, because the body's not supposed to live more than three days without water.
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Depending on the heat, people can survive up to 10 days without water.
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I try to jump into water one day and I can't commit suicide just because I don't believe in it.
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But I figured if I slam down as deep as I can go and I ran out of air before I made it to the surface,
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then I would commit suicide, which it is.
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But I tried and it's so hard to kill yourself. It's hard to drown yourself at least.
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When you hear something go, I'm starving.
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We'll just look at each other and say they really don't know what it's like to be starving.
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Basically, the way it feels is that your stomach's eaten, you're stomaching.
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Really. You're sitting there, you look at anything.
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You look at your fingers, you look at your hand, you look at Troy or he looked at me.
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You're thinking, what he might taste good, we found these little jelly balls and the floating pizadis.
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They're actually a little strands, they'll connect to each other.
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It's no bigger than a racer on a pencil. I mean, that's how low they are.
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They'll strand together and they actually glow at night. They're like a little green color.
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We weren't sure what they were. I was going to eat something.
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It was another thing that if they were poisonous and it would kill me,
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I would go to heaven and I wouldn't be lost out at sea anymore.
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He ate one and the next morning he was fine and he was like, oh, you some more.
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I took my hat off and I'd scoop him up about a hat for when he'd eat them.
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I slept a few hundred down and it tastes like oyster.
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It's really fishy and it has probably twice as bad after taste.
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Jelly balls are considered a delicacy in Asian cuisine.
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They are always eaten, dried or cooked.
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Every day was a same ordeal.
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We always looked for boats, always looked for rescuers.
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We always prayed, we always cried, we always started our family.
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That was just like an everyday process.
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We swam around a little bit. I told Troy, we saw some sharks.
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I said, the shark grabbed me and I said, don't try to help me.
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I said, just let him eat me. I said, it just kills me faster. I said, it's fine.
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Josh and I wrote notes in the boat to our parents with them three ounce weights.
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It was tackled out and left over from the tackle box that we threw in the water.
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It was a shape of a pyramid and we'd use the point of it and we'd actually get on the fiberglass inside the boat
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and we'd just engrave letters to our friends we told them.
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We know thanks for being friends with us.
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We've shared so many good experiences with each other.
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And then when we talked about our family, we tell them how much we loved them, how much we cared for them.
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But I mean, after writing those notes, we cried and it was hard to cry because we didn't have any tears basically.
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It was just our hearts were crushed.
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Now I'm not going to see my dad anymore. I'm not going to see my mom, any of my family.
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On the seventh day, when I woke up, I looked out and there was this big old rainbow.
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And then they said, I looked down in the water and there was three or four dolphins and then two little bait dolphins swimming around.
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I woke Troy, he was still dead asleep and I had to show him it was just an awesome sight.
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Troy and I sat there in that morning and watched him dolphins for probably two or three hours.
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It was like all these signs were being thrown at us and I told Josh, you know, either we were going to die and go to heaven or someone's going to find us.
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And it was almost like I knew I was going to die that night.
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I knew I didn't have it in me to go another night.
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And we started praying, you know, and I just started saying, you know, well, you know, God, I said, if you're in a rescuous and do it, I said, not just let us die.
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You know, I basically gave him an option. He had no other options.
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And he went in five minutes later, Troy goes, I hear an engine.
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And I was like, well, it's probably going to be like every other boat, you're just going to go right past this.
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The boys had seen at least 10 other boats while they were lost at sea.
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You know, something told me to stand up and to see where it was.
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And when I stood up and I realized it was coming right for us, it was like a burst of energy in me.
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And I started going crazy and I told Josh to stand up.
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We started waving our paddles and screaming.
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And it was like they went straight for us.
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And it was just, it was an amazing feeling.
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A bad weather forecast had forced the fishing boat to change course.
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As soon as I got on that boat, you know, it felt like our whole everything was just lifted off our shoulders.
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We couldn't hardly walk. It felt like it just hit us then that, you know, how miserable we were or how close to Don we really were.
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The boys had drifted 111 miles to the North Carolina coast.
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The searchers in South Carolina no longer expected to find them alive.
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The first phone call I made was to my dad and, you know, I told my dad, you know, I'm alive. I'm alive.
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He just screamed my name, Troy really loud.
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And after that he hung up and I guess he was just really excited to hear that, you know, I'm still alive and still on Earth.
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Josh spent two days in the hospital recovering from severe dehydration.
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I survived because my grandad and my dad and all that.
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They always told us my whole life that, you know, if you're getting a situation, don't panic.
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Think about it, you know, stay with the boat, especially if you're on the water. Always stay with your boat.
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And if it went further than a vice and the friendship and God being with us, there was no way we'd ever made it.
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Drinking saltwater and having fair skin caused Troy's condition to be worse.
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He had third degree burns and his feet had permanent nerve damage.
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I survived this trip mainly and I believe this is because of God, the grace of God. There's a reason why, you know, I'm on this Earth.
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Troy and Josh remain very close and still go fishing together.
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Our friendship now turns to a brotherhood and I mean, we're always there for each other and we will be there for each other until the day we die.
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