A retired Navy SEAL explains how to escape from a car trunk
Violent Nomads frequently operate in or near countries that are at war or in political crisis, and thus are vulnerable to being kidnapped for ransom-sometimes as a calculated attempt to thwart a mission, sometimes simply as a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
More and more frequently, travelers to unstable regions face the same risk.
The most predictable points of vulnerability in a traveler's schedule are his departure from and return to his hotel at the beginning and end of his day-but an abduction may also be the result of a staged automobile accident.
Common ruses used by kidnappers to apprehend a target on the road include:
The Bump: The attacker bumps the target's vehicle from behind. The target gets out to assess the damage and suddenly finds himself in the trunk of a car.
The Good Samaritan: The attackers stage what appears to be an accident or feign a car problem. The target stops to assist and suddenly finds himself in the trunk of a car.
The target finds himself in the trunk of a car. In each of these scenarios, the target ends up imprisoned.
But he doesn't have to remain in that state. Take the time to understand how a vehicle's trunk operates, learning its vulnerabilities and how to defeat them.
If locked in a trunk, always try to be positioned in a way that allows access to escape tools.
Excerpted from 100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Operative's Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation by Clint Emerson. Copyright © 2015 by Clint Emerson. Used by permission of Touchstone, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.