Ala. girl escapes from attacker by fighting back

CULLMAN Ala. -- A young Cullman County girl was sexually assaulted in broad daylight in the middle of an amusement park. She was able to get away and credits a special class at school for teaching her how to fight back.

Attacks like this one are not uncommon. One out of five rapes takes place in a public area. 29 percent of female victims don't know their attacker.

A trip in late July a Georgia amusement park should have produced many happy memories for almost a dozen young people from a Cullman church youth group. But what happened that day was a nightmare for one 13-year-old girl.

Eighth-grader Jordan Ward says she was sitting on a park bench waiting on her friends to finish a ride when a stranger walked directly up to her and assaulted her. She explained what happened. “All the sudden a man just ran up to me and started touching me in inappropriate places. I was just like ‘oh my gosh what is happening?’ And right then I just slapped him! I just reacted.”

According to police, what Jordan did next may have saved her life and prevented the attack from being even more traumatic. “I just slapped him across the face as hard as I could to get him off of me. And he let go of me and I ran as fast as I could. I don't think I've ever run that hard.”

Officer Cindy Rohrscheib with the Cullman City Police Department said, “I was super proud of her, I was really proud of her. She did everything we taught them to do in the class she did it to a tee.”

Rohrscheib and her twin sister, Cullman County Deputy Jennifer Chaffin, taught Jordan and most of Cullman Middle School girls self defense last December. It's a class called the Equalizer Women's Self Defense Program.

Chaffin said, “We teach fight and flight. We're not teaching them how to go in there and try to kill a guy. We’re teaching them defend yourself, make it safe, get away from him, break away and flee to get help.”

In the class, the girls are taught how to find an attacker’s weakness and take advantage of it. They actually practice punching, slapping, kicking and scratching in all different kinds of scenarios.

Rohrscheib said, “Then we even go to ground fighting. If you're tackled to the floor and someone's dead weight on top of you, how do you get them off.”

The equalizer class teaches girls more than just how to defend themselves, it gives them the confidence and self respect so they will decide to defend themselves.

Empowering a child to say "no" is a critical step in preventing sexual abuse.

Officer Rohrscheib and Deputy Chaffin say 90% of escaping an attacker is mental. They say that's why it’s so important to teach this class to young girls Jordan's age who are often easy targets.

Rohrscheib explained, “We try to let them know that, hey, this is your body. And it is up to you, who gives you a hug or whatever. You decide hey, that’s too far.”

Jordan said, “It gave me more confidence to know what to do and it made me feel like I can do it and I could fight them off.”

P.E. Coach LeeAnn Evans helped the officers bring the equalizer class to the middle school. Jordan's 7th grade class last year was the first to take part in the two week program.

Evans said. “We said last year, if it helps one girl then it was a true success.”

Jordan’s mom, LaDonna Ward is glad her daughter had the opportunity to learn self defense, ”For a couple of days I was just proud and then I realized it could've been a lot worse.”

Jordan's attacker was never caught. Rohrscheib said, ”He's gonna probably most likely do that to somebody else and it’s probably not the first time he'd done that either.”

Every two minutes someone in this country is sexually assaulted.

Jordan said, “You don't really think something like that will ever happen to you ‘cause I didn't, but it did.”

Rohrscheib said, “When you hear a story like this, you know it was effective and that you made a difference and that's what we're all about.”

Officer Rohrscheib and Deputy Chaffin normally teach the Equalizer class to adult women, but because this trial run last year at Cullman Middle School had such a positive result, they're working to bring the program to all Cullman County schools.