Hi, I'm Caitlin Van Moll, host of I Survived. As you may have heard in the past few weeks, we are relaunching season one. We love these stories and are excited for them to reach new audiences. Episode three is Amanda. I teach her just minding her own business on her lunch break. But bad luck put her in the path of a man who would change her life. Amanda is a great example of someone who kept their wits about them in a very stressful situation and made it out alive.

But this is also a story of forgiveness and empathy, which you'll hear in episode three of I Survived, the hardest 20 yards I have ever walked.

This episode contains sensitive content.

Listener discretion is advised.

I didn't mind telling people what happened, but I realized

really quickly that people were really nervous when I told them. In 2008, Amanda was working as an

ESL teacher at a high school in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was not actually really intend to

move to Charlotte. I just thought I would go somewhere outside of North Carolina, actually. But I got this internship, and then my aunt and uncle actually lived in Charlotte. I lived with them at the beginning. But at that time, I had a roommate, who was my best friend. She was 24 years old and hadn't been teaching for long, but she loved it.

I worked in working with kids for a really long time, so I taught swim lessons when I was a kid,

and I worked as a tutor in college, and I really liked it, and I really loved my job.

I was teaching at a very high poverty school, and I mean, we were like 90% of the students

were below the poverty level. So basically, all my kids were from different countries.

I had a lot of kids who had limited formal education in the past, so they hadn't been

in a formal school setting before they came to the U.S. So that was really cool.

It wasn't necessarily me as a teacher, but it was just having a teacher that, you know,

that cared about them was really important. And it was just really a fun experience to have,

you know, kids who really wanted to be in the classroom and I really loved it.

School had just resumed after winter break, and Amanda left during her lunch to get some candy for her students as motivation.

Just as she was about to return to school, she was approached by a man who would alter the course of her life.

This is I Survived, the podcast where we talk to women who've lived through the worst things imaginable

and all the tragic, messy, and wonderful things that can happen after survival. I'm Caitlin Van Moll.

I walked out of the restaurant where I picked up my lunch and I'd already been to the store, so I had a bag of stuff in my hands. And I was getting my keys out. And there was a man standing about, I don't know, 20 feet from my car. And he came up and said, do you know how to get to this location? I think it was like Sugar Creek Road. Do you know how to get there? And I said, no, I'm sorry, but very politely because it didn't bother me. I thought, you know, he just wants directions. And I kept on walking to my car. I really didn't feel that threatened. He looked like someone's like fat, middle-aged, white, kind of creepy but not threatening, uncle, just this fat old guy. And then he got a little bit closer and he said,

...