An Australian traveller has spoken out after she allegedly escaped two abduction attempts during what was meant to be a dream trip through Italy.
Stephanie, a 36-year-old executive from Melbourne, travelled to Europe with friends in October last year before deciding to remain in Sicily alone after they returned home.
Drawn to the area of Lo Stagnone for its kiteboarding scene, the young Aussie joined a meet-up with other enthusiasts of the water sport at a bar.
When the group decided to make their way to another venue, a foreign expat offered to give Stephanie and another passenger a lift there in his car, to which they both accepted.
But things started going south when Stephanie claims the man suddenly drove away from the gathering at high speed.
“I got into the car and he starts driving. We go 300 metres, 400 metres; and he says, ‘let’s see if we can get this car to 160,’” she told news.com.au.
“I’m terrified. So I start pleading, begging, and the car goes faster. Screaming, yelling, and the car goes faster. And these are small Sicilian roads.
“And I’m like, ‘Sorry, what?’ He starts driving faster and faster and I’m like, ‘No, please don’t. I want to get out.’”
As the journey continued, Stephanie sent a text message to her kiteboard instructor to share her location while listening to a conversation between the driver and other passenger.
“And then his friend that was in the front passenger seat said to him, ‘Is everyone coming back to your place, are they?’
“And he goes, ‘No, absolutely not, no one’s coming.’”
“So I realised that even the friend doesn’t really understand what’s going on. He’s confused.”
Terrified for her safety, Stephanie decided to try and open the door as the car pulled into a gated compound.
“I just decide, well, I may as well check the car door. Because I’m not safe with these people. The friend doesn’t seem like he’s got enough backbone to stop whatever this man has in mind for me,” she continued.,
”It opened and I just ran and ran, for as long as I could, before I found an object to hide behind and check if I was being followed, and I wasn’t.”
After reaching a nearby town on foot, Stephanie sought help from a security guard by using a translator app on her phone to explain the ordeal.
The man then offered to drive her back to her accommodation. But just when she thought she was safe, Stephanie claims the man started making advances.
“He just pulls over into this alleyway and he’s determined to translate on my phone,” she said.
“So I finally gave him the phone when he’d stopped driving, and he typed on the phone: ‘What are you going to do for me for driving you home?’
“So I just did the same thing. The door was open and I ran into a vineyard.”
Stephanie made it back to her accommodation after breaking free from the security guard’s car and stopped to buy drinks from vending machines along the way so that her transactions could be tracked in case of a third incident.
The woman said she “cried all the next day” and later sought support from the kiteboarding group who were rattled by the news.
Shaken by the two encounters, Stephanie wants her experience to be a warning for other travellers in Australia and overseas.
“Unfortunately for me and a lot of my girlfriends, much worse things have happened to us here in Australia,” she said.
“I think we’d like to say it’s isolated to other countries. But we can see by domestic violence rates and the amount of women being unalived in Australia that it’s not safe here either.”
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