What in the world is going on!

So this morning I was checking in on my Facebook, I did not look much over the weekend and found a CRAZY, SCARY and DISTURBING story posted by a friend about a situation her husband found himself in. It made my heart sad as I read it. Below is my friends post and after that are more thoughts from me, I have removed names as a courtesy.
A lesson learned, that I must share with my friends.


Hi Friends! I want to share with you what happened to my husband last week. I want to share with you so that you can learn from his experience, and in turn pass on the caution.

While in Chicago last week for business, my husband went to a bar with some colleagues after dinner. This Irish pub was in a good part of town, visited the night before by the men he was with, and had no warning signs that it was not a safe place to be. When he is out like this, he orders one drink that will take a while to finish so he is sure to not over drink. In this case, he ordered a draft Guinness.

While there, he and the two men he was with were slipped something in their drinks. We assume it was GHB ("the date rape drug"). None of the men have memory of leaving the bar, or getting home. Fortunately, for the other two men, they took forgotten cab rides and made it back to their hotels safely, my husband, however, did not.

With no memory, he does not know what steps he took that lead him from having a Guinness to being assaulted and robbed. What we do know is that the Lord protected him and got him back to his hotel safely in the end.

From the best we can figure he was about 20 miles from his hotel when the taxi found him (the Irish pub was less than two miles from his hotel). We do not know exactly how he got to that place, or how he was hurt. The doctor confirmed that the bruising on his leg and back are not from a fall as they are too deep. He advised that the sprained ankle and shin splints are from walking hard and fast, and far.

What he does remember is being alone and very scared on a dark street when a cab came by. He was barely able to say his hotel's name. The Lord sent that cab. If only the driver knew that he may well have saved his life that night.

Upon arriving at the hotel he was again sent an angel in the form of the security guard who paid the fare and protected him from an irate driver. The guard said that he was shaking and quite impaired in a different way than having just been drunk.

Whoever did this to my husband, took everything off of his person - wallet, card case, receipts, pen, note pad, etc. Everything that was in his suit pockets, with the exception of his room key was taken. In the early morning hours the thieves drained our bank account (and then some thanks to over-draft protection), and attempted to use our credit cards.

In the mean time, as his wife, I knew that something was wrong when I had no communication from him since dinner that night. We have a communication plan in place when he travels so we know each other are safe. And, clearly, by midnight that night, I knew something was wrong. I hope no wife has to experience the fear and worry I did that next morning. I could not find him and could see our bank account had been drained. While on hold with the Chicago PD, he called in. I could barely understand him and at that point he had no idea what had happened to him the night before.

In the end, he was able to fly home thanks to another angel at Delta and very kind TSA officers. The Lord got him back to Montgomery Friday night - shaken and injured, but alive.

We are now dealing with the clean up of all of this...no access to credit, and a limited bank account until the investigation on their end is complete. But...that' just stuff. Our family is still whole. We are struggling emotionally with it right now. Physically he is still very sore and bruised, but was able to walk with no pain today. I am having a tough time seeing him leave in the morning. I always ask the Lord to bring him home safely every day, but had a comfort that him coming home was a given. I now know that is not the case and that at anytime life as we live it can be gone.

I think the Lord was getting our attention to better appreciate Him and each other; and to not be so focused on "worldy" things.

So...here are a few lessons I hope you will take to heart when you travel, or if you are just out one night:


• Have a "buddy"; someone that will not leave you, and you will not leave
• Unless you are with a group, just go back to your hotel after dinner
• Do not accept a drink from a stranger, or leave your drink alone
• If you want an "open" drink, order it directly from the bar tender, watch it being made and have it handed   directly to you
• If you have a waitress, order an unopened beer (we are quite certain the drug was put into his Guinness draft)
• When traveling, keep a copy of your passport tucked safely in your luggage so you have a copy of your id (this with a police report will allow you to fly)
• Do not have an ATM/debit pin number that can be found on your id (his was his birth year)


I pray that none of you experience what we have. And, we pray for the thugs that did this to him. May the Lord's judgment on them be swift. May they not be allowed to do what they did to another. And, may the Lord speak to their hearts to come to Him and away from the devil's ways.

I was sitting there eating my oatmeal almost in tears, for myriad reasons. Mainly I was hurting for my friends and their situation, thank God in the end the Angels were sent and brought him back home. Then I started remembering my days in the military traveling the world, OUTSIDE the United States. We used to have the buddy system, we always went out in groups, we tried to have someone stay sober, we drank from unopened cans and bottles and we carried only our ID and some cash, some in each pocket and some in our socks keeping our ID company. This were in the days before ATM’s and before credit cards were common and even if you had them they mostly did not work overseas anyway. These simple procedures seemed like simple common sense at the time, because we were visiting places like Istanbul Turkey, Cartagena Columbia, Jamaica, Abu Dhabi, Egypt and any other number of places – places that we knew were dangerous and being young and dumb we were always going to the bad areas of town that were supposed to be off limits. It was a “goes without saying” in those places but I would never consider instituting such security policies in Chicago, and I have been to a number of bars in that town as well.

Then I got to wondering about what in the hell is going on now a days in our Great Country. I was talking to another friend about this today and she had heard of this before and that kinda indicates that it might be more common than we know, or want to admit. So, at this point I am just mad, and it makes me sad to hear this story, it makes me sad that I may have to change the way I live my life, it makes me sad for others who may change the way they live their lives. This is the United States of America, we should not have to worry about this type of attack. It used to be that in the bad areas of town you had to be cautious but in a perfectly normal part of town in a perfectly normal bar we did not have to worry about getting slipped a mickey and then rolled. It makes me wonder about how coordinated and obviously well orchestrated this madness was, hell that could have been my fountain drink of diet coke or a sweet tea. I for one refuse to live my life in fear, I am also not a naïve kid and will have a heightened awareness about what I am doing and where I am doing it from now on.  There is another blog coming soon about another crazy situation that is hard to believe.

My heart goes out to ya and Bride and I are raising up some prayers for you and your family and I want everyone to BE CAREFUL out there, it is obviously not as safe as we thought.