Spring Break Nightmare: Former Student Has A Chilling Warning

Editor’s note: Patch’s policy is not to name victims of sexual assault, but in this situation, the victim publicly stepped forward with her story in hopes that sharing it would save other students from a similar ordeal. This story was originally published on Feb. 27, 2015, but the message is still valuable today as tens of thousands of college students prepare for spring break.

As students across the country book trips for a week in a sunny destination far away from professors and exams, 2014 Michigan State University graduate Lucy Gradolph has a chilling warning for spring break revelers about how her own laissez-faire approach to safety changed her life forever.

Gradolph and other MSU students headed to the white sands and clear blue seas of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for spring break in 2014. On the final night, March 7, she wrote in a column published on WJBK-TV:

“I was kidnapped, raped, and almost killed. … It took one corrupt cab driver and his accomplice, to try to take my life away from me everlastingly.

“A simple, 30-second mistake, led me into a real life nightmare from hell. I was abducted by two men, raped, and threatened to be killed, limb-by-limb. No one knew where I was, no one knew what was happening to me, and worst of all, no one could save me, except myself.”

Also on Patch:

• Student Reports Scary Incident While Waiting for Uber Car

At one point, she said, a man in the back of a cab she had taken to return to her hotel room was assaulting her, while at the same time arguing with the cab driver in Spanish over whether to kill her.

Gradolph hopes magazines and universities will pick up her story in a warning to other unsuspecting women.

“Be aware that when you are on spring break, these people are preying on you in different ways than you think,” she said. “Don’t be alone, and actually know your plan.”

• Read Gradolph’s full column on WJBK-TV’s website.

Girls Fight Back spring break safety tips featured recently on CNN include advice on handling dangers encountered while traveling to a spring break destination (whether domestic or foreign), in hotels, while using ATMs, while drinking, while playing in the sun and water, and during encounters with the opposite sex.

______

Screenshot via WJBK-TV

» Sign up for Patch’s daily newsletter and news alerts.