This article assumes that a child will be able to overcome her initial shock and then react. In my personal experience, I found that I was "frozen" in the initial moments of an attack.
I'm female, in my 20's at the time, coming home from work at midnite in my car, and three threatening young men stopped their car in front of me, forcing me to slam on my breaks. They jumped out of their car and ran back to my car (it was dark on a suburban road). They started screaming and banging on my windows and kicking at the side of my car, shouting, open up!
I thought the window on my driver's side was going to cave in (they caused significant damage to my car.) At this point in time, I seemed to freeze. Everything seemed to me to be happening in slow motion. I was frozen in the seat of my car. I wanted to scream, I was trying to make myself scream, but nothing would come out.
After some seconds, I remembered my umbrella with the four inch point that lay under my seat. I remember thinking, if the window goes, then I can jab that point in one of the attackers' faces. So I reached slowly, deliberately under my seat.
I assume that they thought I was reaching for a gun, and they ran off. They hit their car in reverse and stopped just short of my bumper, then drove off. If I hadn't still been in a sort of frozen state, I would have put my car in reverse and sped backwards. But I found that I couldn't think entirely clearly.
I've shared this story on message boards before. (Gun owners love it, I'm sure!) Maybe it will help someone realize how to mentally prepare for stress during an attack situation.
Each day in the United States, more than 2,000 children are reported missing -- nearly 800,000 each year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
If Leanna was abducted by a stranger, she's one of about 57,000 such cases annually, Justice Department studies show. But, of those, only a tiny fraction -- 115 annually -- are the stereotypical, long-term kidnapping by a stranger -- the kind of high-profile crimes most often reported in the media.
Of those 115, about 60 percent are recovered alive. Nearly half are sexually assaulted, and nearly all are taken 50 or more miles from their homes.
Stranger abduction "is the smallest percentage of missing children. But when it does happen, there's still good hope that they may come home," Wetterling said, noting recent cases in California and Minnesota where missing children were recovered safe after being abducted.
The majority of missing children nationally -- 45 percent -- are ages 15-17. About 30 percent are 12-14, 14 percent are 6-11 and 12 percent are 5 or younger.
Other links:
http://www.4momsathome.com/articles/vanished.html Dealing with abduction fears:
Program teaches children ways to prevent, survive the unthinkable
By Judi Brinegar
Staff Writer, The Courier-Tribune
http://www.courier-tribune.com/nws/escape1030.html