A Personal Kidnapping Story: Bahamas 2007

Before I begin my story, I would like to make it clear that the Bahamas is still one of my favorite places that I have ever been to. This incident only happened because of teenage immaturity.

We just had graduated High School and were all very excited about what the future would bring to us, but there was only one thing on all of our minds.

The 5 of us were going to the Bahamas with no supervision!

As the trip got closer and closer I became more and more excited, but at the same time I had a feeling of nervousness. Whether it was because of my anxiety of flying, or just an overall fear of leaving the country by myself, nothing was going to stop me from missing this trip.

So the morning finally arrives, and all of us meet at my house at around 5 am. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 730 am, so we figured that we would need about 2 hours to travel and get everything settled.

This was when our first setback took place.

One of our good friends, you may know him as Peteydeez, was still sleeping. His cell phone was off and no one could get in touch with him.

We tried waiting as long as we could, but eventually we had to leave or else we would all miss the flight.

We got to the airport and laughed about how funny it would be if he had missed the flight. Once we started boarding the plane, it became less funny, but I still had a feeling that he would make it. This feeling was gone once we took off.

Pete missed the flight, putting a complete damper on the trip. The flight was filled with a weird combination of emotions. We were upset about Pete missing the flight, but we were also excited about the vacation as a whole.

Once we landed, there was this strong feeling of happiness. Before getting our bags, we passed a bar in the airport that offered free drinks with mandatory tips. We all left a dollar each and got our first drinks. Although it was just the first drink, for some reason I felt tipsy. I think it was just a natural high that I was feeling from the overall excitement.

Fast-fowarding passed all of the checking in and getting settled in our rooms at Breezes Bahamas, we ended up jet skiing in the ocean. This really set the vacation off to a great start. As our time expired I started coming back towards the beach to realize someone who looked like Pete by the pool.

I raced over to the pool to see that Pete had made it. We were all overwhelmed with happiness and were uncontrollable.

Now we all thought that nothing else can ruin this vacation, BUT WE WERE WRONG.

On the first night, we all decided that we would go to a certain club. We drank back at our resort since it was an all-inclusive, and then made our way to the club. It was filled with other students that had just graduated High School as well. It was a typical club scene; dark, foggy, crowded, loud music and very hot.

We were drunk and having a good time, until one of our friends, Andy, got sick. Not all of us were aware of this because we were to busy having a great time. One of our other friends (I will call him Steve) thought that it would be smart to place Andy in a cab by himself and have him sent back to the resort.

If we all would have known about this, we would have traveled back with him, but we were young, immature, and not paying attention to our surroundings.

Hours passed by and we decided to leave, but we couldn’t find Andy. This is when Steve decided to tell us that he had sent him back to the resort by himself.

Without panicking, we all got in a cab headed back to the resort. Our cab ride was pretty funny considering that our driver was a drug dealer that was offering us drugs and/or sexual pleasure from the prostitute in the front seat with him.

We got to the resort and checked all over for Andy, but couldn’t find him. We checked the club on the resort, all of the bars, and even the rooms, but he was nowhere to be found. About 2 hours passed from the time we arrived back at the resort and we started to get nervous. We went to the beach and asked a group of people if they seen him. After giving them a description, they said that they did see him. They directed us towards the main desk, and he was there!

This is when we found out that he was almost KIDNAPPED!

In Andy’s words to the police officer it went like this:

” I was placed in a cab by myself. I sat up in the passenger seat next to the driver and he didn’t say a word. I looked to the right and realized that we had passed our resort. I was drunk, but I was able to read the big Breezes sign. I told him that he missed the stop, and he told me not to worry about it. After he had said that, I heard the doors lock. He automatically locked all of the doors in the car. Once again I told him that he passed the resort. He told me not to worry because we were going somewhere else. At this point I decided to react. I unlocked my door and jumped out of the car. I rolled a couple of feet, ripping my shirt and cutting my back up. I ran faster than ever back to the resort.”

A day after, it was like nothing happened. Someone was potentially kidnapped and it was all forgotten about. If that happened in the United States, there would be a search for the kidnapper. The only conclusion that I can come to is that they probably make most of their money from vacationers, and they do anything to prevent damage to their reputation.

It is scary to think about what could have happened to Andy. Were his organs going to be sold? Was he going to be abused by psycho paths? Was he going to be raped?

We didn’t let this ruin our vacation. The rest of the week actually turned out to be the best week of our lives.

To this day, I still believe that calmness and our positive energy helped the situation. We did not once panic or think anything negative. Say we did panic, other stuff could have happened. Fights could have broken out, other people could have went missing or we could have even gotten kicked out of the resort.

One important lesson that I learned from this is that when you’re in a bad situation, stay calm and positive. It can only help the situation.