Unlikely Item Helped Kidnap Victim Escape Trunk

Quick thinking, light of insulin pump gave Brittany Diggs the chance to escape
By Gina Carey,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 20, 2017 9:43 AM CDT

The Alabama nursing student whose brave kidnapping escape was caught on a gas station's surveillance video last week revealed that her insulin pump played a role in her getaway. In an exclusive interview with the Today show on Monday, Brittany Diggs, 25, said the faint light of her insulin pump helped her find the emergency release lever in her trunk. (Since September 2001, all new cars must have such a lever there.) Diggs waited until the gunman who abducted her last Tuesday was pulling out of the gas station before she yanked the latch and leapt from the vehicle. She described what was going through her mind, knowing she had just seconds to act. "I'm holding the latch like this, waiting for him to get back in the car. ... He's yelling, and I feel the car reversing, and he's pulling out pretty fast, so I'm, like, 'Oh shoot, I better get out of here.'"

Diggs says the abductor grabbed her outside her apartment and, after learning she didn't have money on her, asked to look in her trunk. She showed him it was empty; Diggs says he made her get in, then drove her around trying to use her ATM card. He was allegedly attempting to use it at the gas station before her escape. He's still at large and has personal details about Diggs, including her wallet and phone. Worried about her safety, she plans to move. "I try to put it in the back of my head so I can just ... get through the day, but that was like the scariest thing I've ever had to deal with." Birmingham police are optimistic they'll catch her abductor. "We're working really hard to get this guy identified," Police Chief AC Roper tells AL.com. Diggs' friends have set up a GoFundMe page to help her relocate and start anew; more than $30,000 had been donated as of Tuesday morning. (Another kidnapping grabbing national headlines involves a Tennessee teacher.)

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