I WISH THIS WAS NOT DEAD SERIOUS

[Nevermore]

...I'm not a religious person and I expect a lot of people here are not. But please, please, whatever deity you bow to, send out your thoughts for the girl I saw being forced into a guy's car at about 10:40 PM on International Boulevard in South Seattle. Those familiar with the Seattle area might recognize the area as the hunting grounds of the Green River Killer--and in fact, I saw this happen literal yards from the bridge that spans that infamous river.
I had just gotten off work and was heading to my usual on ramp when I came upon what I thought was two guys fighting, one in and one outside of a minivan. It would not have been an unusual sight, as it's Friday night and a few blocks from a rowdy club. The light turned yellow and I came alongside the van, and saw that it was a young man struggling to force a girl into the van.
She was fighting for her life. I am totally not exaggerating.
I opened my door and said something like "Hey!" and I asked her if she wanted a lift. He turned and I suppose he told me to mind my own business or assure me that she was drunk or it was all right--honestly, I wasn't paying any attention to him, because my attention was focused on her.
She was desperate. Absolutely terrified.
I yelled I was calling 911 and she screamed at me to call the cops and he said something like, no, don't call the cops, which I ignored, and I pulled in front of his grey Acura minivan to keep him from getting away. While the 911 operator was busy asking for my mother's maiden name and my shoe size, he succeeded in shoving her into the passenger seat and backed away.
I saw what he was doing and took off after him/them. He drove like a madman toward the freeway and I chased him as long as I could, but he managed to get a slow-moving car between me and him on a long narrow feeder with several freeway arteries, and rather than endanger myself and god knows how many other people, I lost him.
The 911 operator assured me they had it under control and the WSP would take it from there, but I am just sick thinking of how many routes he could have taken, how many possible turnoffs, and above all, what happened to that girl.
Maybe she was his girlfriend and they were just having a fight, but that's the kind of fight that ends in someone being killed.
I cursed myself all the way home, and I am still doing so--why didn't I get out of my car and take him on? He wasn't small, but I'm a pretty big woman and I wouldn't want to get in a fight with myself. Why didn't I use the camera I always have to take a bunch of pictures, maybe freak him into leaving her there?  And why the HELL did not one of the hundreds of people that passed the scene do anything but gawk?
All I can think about is this girl.
If you had been there, you would have seen that whatever was going doen between them was going to end in something dreadful. She was fighting like a wildcat to not get in that car.
I'm hoping I get a call from the WSP tomorrow saying that it was a domestic dispute and they fight all the time and she never presses charges. That's an awful situation, but it would be the best-case scenario after what I saw.
I have never felt so impotent in my entire life.
I will never forget her face.

Pray for this girl, people.

[David In Indy]

I will pray for her. That must have been a horrible thing to witness. Let's hope and pray she's okay. 

[Katie77]

OMG...lets hope it was not as serious as you fear..........

You did everything you could, dont feel guilty about what you think you should have done. It was probably only a matter of seconds, that you had any opportunity to help, and you did the right thing.

[Kelda]

Nevermore - you did what you could in a surprise and volitile situation... well done I'm not ure many of us would have reacted in such a positive way when something like that happens.

If nothing else - you have seen his face. You ahve seen his van. You have heard his voice. These are all very important issues in finding people like this.

Please keep us updated.

[injest]

Nevermore, I am so proud of you. Like you said so many other people drove by but at least if worse comes to worse that girl knows that someone TRIED to help...that someone cared.

What a horrible thing to witness....please take the time to write down every detail you can think of...call the police in the morning and ask to speak to a detective, give your information again. That is what you can do at this point...

{{{NM}}}

Thank you. You were a hero last night.

[Front-Ranger]

Nevermore, I am so proud of you. Like you said so many other people drove by but at least if worse comes to worse that girl knows that someone TRIED to help...that someone cared.
Thank you. You were a hero last night.

Amen! Please keep us posted on this and thanks for writing. We should all think of what we could do if this happened to us.

[Shasta542]

Audacious, Nevermore!!! Good for you!

I'd have probably been afraid of getting shot!

I bet that your adrenalin was pumping, huh?

Tell us when you hear about what happened afterwards.

[Nevermore]

Thanks for your support, folks. It's been five days and--nothing. When I stopped to get gas on the way home, I saw about a dozen cop cars screaming up Hwy. 99 going north, in the general direction this man was going, so I can only hope.
I did ask my sister-in-law, who works for our local ABC affiliate, how I might go about finding out what happened, but she said I would have to get an incident report, and I don't know where to even ask for one. I sure don't want to be one of those people you hear about, calling 911 for a non-emergency like their neighbor's truck blocking the sidewalk or whatever. So all I can do is hope this guy got busted and they don't need me anymore.

[Katie77]

Well as they say Nevermore......NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS........

I know this is something that you will not forget in a hurry, but try to get it out of your mind, and relax, otherwise it will take hold of you.

Best wishes to you.

[BlissC]

{{{{Nevermore}}}}

You did what you could in the spur of the moment, which is a damned sight more than many people would have done, and as you say much more than those hundreds of people who passed by and did nothing.

Hindsight is a curse at times, and like the saying goes, "We all have 20/20 vision in hindsight", and given that same situation I'm sure every one of us would be asking ourselves the same questions, could I have?, should I have?, what if?

The fact is though that you did a damned sight more than many people would have done, and as Kelda said, you saw the guy's face, you saw his van, you did what you could given only an instant to react, and you followed for as long as it was safe to do so, both for yourself, and others on the road.

Maybe, as Injest said, you could contact your local police station? I guess it'd be similar in the US. Here in the UK we have the 999 emergency services number, but local police stations also have a direct dial phone number for non-emergencies. 

You did all that you could given those circumstances, and you shouldn't beat yourself up for not doing things differently. I'm sure we'd all be feeling the way you are now, but as Katie says, try and put it to the back of your mind and don't let it take hold of you.   

[injest]

the good thing is that murders make the news...so if something really bad happened to that woman you would have heard. so maybe it came out ok...

[Katie77]

Something similar happened to my son Paul, a few weeks ago.....

He was at the pub, and just happened to walk out the door, when he saw a bloke get king hit, causing him to hit his head on the pavement and go unconcious.  There was a crowd around who had been watching the altercation, and an ambulance was rung, and the victim was taken off to hospital.

My son who is 37, and not a regular pub goer, was extremely shaken by what he had seen, and the next morning, he was still upset by it. He actually rang the local hospital, to ask about the victim, and whether he was ok. He did not even know his name. Being a country town hospital, the emergency receptionist, was aware of the patient arriving the night before, and although, she could not give out private information, she did tell my son, that the "patient was no longer at the hospital"....so that at least put my sons mind at rest.

But for days afterwards, he kept thinking about it, and bringing it up in conversation, it really got a hold of him.

Actually, he did find out more about the bloke who was hurt......Paul runs a pet shop, and he was talking to a customer about it, and this customer knew the victim, so Paull was happy to find out, that he was OK. It gave him a bit of closure to the incident.