I’m glad a lot of you like Part I, because now we’re going to start talking about what to do in a worst case scenario.

YOU GOTTA HAVE A PLAN – As I mentioned in Part I, you need to have decided going in what you’re going to do. In short, have it planned out. One of the chapters in my soon to be released novel, The Lawman, emphasizes this. This was an actual case I worked, I just fictionalized it for the purposes of the novel.

In it, two young ladies (high school students really) were at an event that our local college held every year up in the mountains. The student council got permission from the forest service (after paying for the permit of course) to take over a campground, bring in bands, and basically blow off steam before spring finals. The event was already on life support from an event the year before that had managed to gather a lot of negative attention, and so the event was fighting for life that year. What happened just pulled the plug on it once and for all.

What the Student Council was supposed to do was police the event themselves. This meant that, unless they had a college ID, they weren’t supposed to be allowed in, and on the surface it appeared they were complying (they had guards at the gate, and people who were supposed to be designated drivers and so on). Well, whatever they were doing, they didn’t do it, as events turned out.

High school students weren’t supposed to be allowed, but these two young ladies got in. Needing a ride home (their boyfriends had decided scoring a college girl would be fun and left the girls to fend for themselves), they accepted a ride from a guy that they had witnessed dealing dope. He told them he was going right through the town they needed to get to and would be happy to give them a lift.

So, against their better judgement, they accepted the ride. About a mile down the road, it started turning a little scary. First the guy offered them a joint. Driving and toking was something that scared the both of them. And then he started making comments that they were both incredibly fine, and so on and that maybe they should show him some thanks for the lift.

Now years before, the two girls had discussed just a situation like this, and they had a code word that meant “First chance, we get out, and run.” Their code words in this case were “We run track.”

Well, the conversation allowed one of the girls to fit the code word in easily. A minute or two later, he turns onto a back road, pulls a gun, and informs them that they’re going to show him a good time.

The minute they stopped, both girls are out the door, and running down the road. One of them stumbled and fell (sandals aren’t one of the great cross training shoes in the world), and the guy was on her. The other girl had kicked off her sandals in the car, and as per the plan, just kept running. They’d long decided that if one got away, to get help for the other.

The one girl stuck to the plan, got to a house about a mile away. Our perp in this case had yelled at her to stop, had even fired a shot at her, but fortunately it was night time and he was lousy shot.

We were called. By the time we got a deputy up there, the guy was long gone, and we found the other girl walking down the road. We knew there was something bigger than the story we had coming out of this, and sure enough, by noon the following day, we had the rest of the story.

Twenty four hours later we had the guy in jail, and he ended up doing thirty years in the state prison system.

But the two girls had already decided what they were going to do in a bad situation, and they stuck to the plan. When the one fail, the other girl knew her mission was to get away and get help, and she stuck to the plan. If she hadn’t, I’m pretty sure they’d have both been raped, possibly even killed because no one would have been heading up the canyon.

So, stick to your plan.

A SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE STRIKE – The young woman in the picture above illustrates a basic strike perfectly. What’s happened is the guy has grabbed her.

Now instinct would say break the hold first, but he’s bigger, and stronger. All she’d be doing is wasting her strength against him. Her best defense here is to fight, then escape.

You can see in the picture that she has an open palm and she has struck the guy in the chin. She is not trying to push him away, she’s out to make him release her. What she did is she start at waist level, and with all her strength she’s shot up for his chin. Do not worry about the hurting the guy, because if you don’t hurt him and get away, he will most certainly hurt you.

There are two places to aim for.

One is the chin itself. Hitting someone in the chin when you’re coming up from below like she did has several effects. One, the chin, teeth and mouth is full of nerve endings.  It’s very painful to take a full power hit there. It also shoves your head back hard onto your neck muscles and spine, adding even more pain. Oftentimes this pain and combination is enough to make the guy let go.

The other place to aim for is the nose. If you’ve ever hit your nose, even by accident, it’s extremely painful. There’s one problem with hitting the nose. The brain is right behind it, and it is possible to break it, and send it up into the brain. It’s very unlikely, but possible. But at this stage of the game, you’re worried about defending yourself, so don’t worry about the other guy. Remember, in a fight to defend yourself, there are no second place winners.

Breaking the nose does a couple of things right away. The pain is intense. It also forces the person to close their eyes, and right away go for their nose. And it bleeds like crazy. Most people will be too concerned with the pain and bleeding to pursue you much more.

Taking a strike to these two areas often times finishes the battle.

Then execute your plan. Get out of there, and run for help.

In Part III, we’ll talk about what to do if the guy doesn’t let go right away and a few more first class strikes.