A man in Utah almost attacked me!!!
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008I had such a wonderful time at the ‘Gathering of Nations’ this past week in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Shannon and I met so many amazing people from different nations across Turtle Island! I didn’t get to wonder around too much, I pretty much stayed at my ‘BT Girl’ booth in the tent. But I really appreciate that there was so many people that went to the Gathering of Nations just to meet Shannon and I! How sweet is that!?! Shannon and I brought our ‘BT Girls’ calendars to sell at the pow wow.
On our drive back unfortunately everything that could go wrong went wrong! We got a flat tire in Colorado so we had to get that fixed but it delayed our journey a few hours.
When we arrived in Utah, we stopped at a small gas station in a small town in the middle of the night. While I was on my way to the ladies washroom I noticed a man was looking at a picture outside of the womens bathroom. I went to the womens washroom and the man followed me in! There was two stalls in the washroom. I was in a stall towards the end of the bathroom and he was standing outside of my stall washroom waiting for me to get out. I saw his dirty runners and jeans at the open space between the bottom of the door and the floor. At first I was thinking maybe I was just being paranoid and maybe it was a lady waiting to use my washroom. But he was standing too close to the door. Finally the man went into the stall next to mine and I looked at the bottom and his feet was too close to the door. (He was definitely not using the toilet. He was too far away to be sitting down)
My knees and hands were shaking so hard because I was terrified but I knew that I had to try to calm down and think of different strategies on how to get out of this situation. If I had a phone I would have text messaged my friend Joshua to come get me in the bathroom. (He was waiting in the car along with my sister and Gramma) I know that people don’t respond to yelling ‘Rape’ but the public does respond to ‘Fire’. I thought that if he grabbed me was going to yell ‘Fire, fire!’ as loud as I could.
I decided not to flush the toilet. I’m sure he was waiting for me to flush the toilet and then attack me. Instead I slowly opened the door to my stall and ran to the doorway. I noticed the door to his stall was partly open so it would be easier for him to get me. So when I ran past his stall I slammed his door as hard as I could (thank god it had a door knob so it clicked closed) and ran towards the door. I noticed that the door was locked from the inside! I was able to unlock it and run out of the store.
It didn’t occur to me to contact the police about what happened until we were on the road. Honestly, I just wanted to get out so fast and it didn’t come during the time it happened. My Gramma told me later on that the only people in the store was people travelling on the Greyhound bus that was parked by. Scary stuff!!!! I don’t think I can ever use a public washroom again!!!
Shauna Baker
