Alison

"Go to the edge," he said.

"We're afraid," they said.

"Go to the edge," he said.

They went to the edge.

They were pushed.

And they flew.

Once upon a time, in 1994 actually,

in the kingdom of South Africa,

there lived in the hamlet of Port Elizabeth -

me.

I was a twenty-seven-year-old.

No aspirations, no great career plans.

I don't remember even as a child

having great dreams and wanting to be anything specific.

I wasn't really good at much at school either.

I studied secretarial for a year after school -

just really to have something to fall back on as my mother said.

I spent four years overseas before returning home.

I remember my mom being relieved that I was back home - safe.

18 December 1994.

It was a perfect summer's day, I remember.

One of those summer days

when you've been at the beach all day.

Your skin's still tight from being in the sun.

Still taste the salt on your skin,

braaivleis, smoke in the air.

Went back to my place, ordered pizza, played games.

At the end of the evening, I offered my friend a lift.

Picked up my laundry from her house, and then came back home.

My parking was now taken,

so I had to park a little bit further down.

I can remember it as if it was yesterday.

I felt the knife at my throat,

and I just heard the voice:

"Move over or else I'll kill you."

I hadn't locked my car doors.

I bet you I know what you're thinking, I should have jumped,

but I didn't want to believe the worst,

so I chose to believe the best.

After all, he said he didn't want to hurt me,

just wants to use my car for about an hour.

"My name's Clinton," he said.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" He asked me.

And the problem with that

is that it gave me a false sense of security.

If only I'd known.

And he stopped. Pulled over.

And here the second big, bad wolf gets into the car

and I remember just looking in the rear-view mirror

and catching his eyes

and that's when my relief just turned to sheer fear;

'cause all I saw was dead, cold evil.

And it was in that moment that it finally dawned on me

that I wouldn't be going home.

They drove past the last street lights,

the last vestige of hope,

and into darkness.

Just the three of us.

And he stopped in an alcove.

He said, "Are you going to fight?"

Do I fight? How do I fight? I don't know how to fight.

He forced me to have oral sex with him

and then he did the same to me.

Saying things like, "Does your boyfriend do this to you?"

"Do you like it? You've got the nicest-tasting fanny."

He gave me a love bite on my breast and kissed me.

Then he raped me.

My body responded.

And although I now know that that's a protection mechanism,

it was for me the ultimate betrayal.

"Frans!" Theuns came over.

That's when I realised his name was not "Clinton",

it was "Frans".

Frans said to Theuns,

"Do you also want to have sex with the lovely lady?"

Theuns just said, "No, I want to fuck the bitch."

"You can't talk to her like that,"

the man who's just raped me says.

"She's a lady, you must speak properly to her."

Before I even knew it, his hands were at my throat.

And the last thing I remember,

my bowels evacuated.

They stabbed me in the abdomen and pubic area,

I'm told, in excess of 37 times.

Theuns was the first to cut my throat.

Frans pushed him out the way.

The moon behind him ironically gave him a halo.

He slashed my throat 17 times.

Their feet started getting smaller and smaller.

Their voices, fainter.

They drove off, throwing my clothing out the car.

Although I couldn't feel any pain,

the noise of my breathing through my severed windpipe -

was horrifying. And that realisation,

that overwhelming feeling of sadness, when it dawned on me -

that I was injured beyond hope. That I was dying.

That I wasn't going to live anymore.

Then I literally left my body -

and the noise stopped.

I remember looking down and already feeling distanced enough

but not far enough that I couldn't go back.

I knew I had that choice.

And I realised that I wanted to go back.

I wanted a chance to live my life better.

And then, I was back in my body and the noise was back.

But first things first.

I had to make sure

that they would never do this again to anyone else.

Frans.

Theuns.

In the hope that they'd be caught and sent to jail.

And then I wrote:

I

love

mom.

I felt something wet at my legs.

I realised that my intestines were actually outside my body.

The denim shirt was nearby.

I was able to hold everything in

with my denim shirt with one hand

and then started crawling with the other

over this ash and cut glass.

I was getting weaker.

Now if I'd died here,

my mom would know that I had survived a bit

and the unanswered questions that she would always have.

I can't do that to Mom.

I realised though that the crawling was too awkward.

I wasn't going to make it.

I had to do better.

So I managed to hoist myself up onto my feet with great effort

and everything went black.

I put my other hand up to my throat

and my entire hand went into the injury.

They'd severed the muscle on the side of my neck

and I realised that my head had actually flopped

right back between my shoulder blades.

I took my other hand and literally pulled my head up

so that I could see.

That's when it happened.

It was as if someone else had taken my feet

and was moving them for me.

And the next thing I knew I was at the road.

I just fell down. I mean, what's the worst that can happen -

that someone's going to drive over me?

A car was coming.

It came closer and I realised

Frans and Theuns could be in that car.

There's nothing I can do.

I fought so hard but the fight's out of me now.

And then the car sped off.

And then I heard another car coming.

I was a twenty-year-old veterinary technology student

studying at the Technikon in Pretoria,

and we were on holiday down in Port Elizabeth with friends.

So you wouldn't expect anything bad to happen on a holiday.

The first thing we saw when we climbed out of the car

was a person lying in the road with no clothes on.

It's something that you'll never forget in your life.

I took her hand.

She was not able to speak. I looked into her eyes.

It was bloodshot, very, very frightened. I just told her,

"Listen, you've got nice eyes."

He was my knight in shining armour.

He was trying so hard to keep me alive.

I mean typical me, I didn't want to give up for his sake.

Luckily one of our friends had a cell phone

which was a new technology for that time.

Phoned the emergency services

and they told us they'll send an ambulance out.

From where we found her up to the hospital

was about fifteen minutes' drive.

We waited.

Twenty minutes.

Thirty minutes.

Fourty minutes.

Eventually the paramedics arrived.

We drove to the hospital.

I asked them if they can drive faster.

They didn't see the urgency to that.

It's like they've almost decided she's not going to make it,

so why rush.

After arriving in casualties,

that was the first time I had to let go of her hand.

My whole ordeal from abduction to that point

had taken only 90 minutes

and the journey that I travelled had been 30 km,

but the real journey was only beginning.

The incident that happened that night in December definitely

had a big, big impact on my life.

That was basically what I needed to make a decision

what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.

And that was, that was to become a doctor.

My appreciation of life has been determined largely

by my background as a scientist, as a doctor and as a specialist

in intensive care medicine and anaesthetics.

And I've been exposed to severe trauma,

life-threatening illness.

But I don't think I've ever experience the horror

of the injuries suffered by Alison.