Truck drivers were used to seeing all sorts of things in all sorts of places. And talking about being at the right place and the right time…well, trucker Kevin Kimmel just happen to be in the right place.
Kimmel, a father, and grandfather was inside of his rig, parked at a Pilot station outside Richmond, Virginia when he caught a glimpse of a young, distraught woman through the window of an RV. The woman disappeared behind a black curtain and Kimmel’s gut reaction told him that something was amiss.
Moments later, a man began knocking on the RV door and headed into the Pilot. Upon exiting the building, he went right back into the RV.
“Saw what looked like a young girl looking out the window, the black drapes didn’t make it look like a families’ RV, you know,” Kimmel told WTVR. “I saw a guy come up and knock on the door then go inside the Pilot — then quickly came back and knocked again, all of the sudden the thing was rocking and rolling.”
Kimmel said it was a “no brainer” as to what was going on, so he called the police.
“When I saw the young girl’s face, I said that’s not going to happen, I’ve got daughters and granddaughters,” Kimmel said.
And once the authorities arrived, Iowa couple Aldair Hodza, 36, and Laura Sorenson, 31, were immediately arrested for forcing a 20-year-old girl into sex slavery. She was malnourished and had puncture wounds and burns all over her body.
It turns out that Kevin had just saved an alleged sex-trafficking victim from a potential lifelong nightmare. The victim had been bound, gagged, forced into prostitution, and repeatedly tortured since being abducted by the couple on Christmas Eve.
Now, Kimmel belongs to an organization called Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT). His actions that day earned him the Harriet Tubman Award for courage, worth $2,500. Tubman was an abolitionist who helped transport hundreds of slaves through the Underground Railroad to freedom.
Kimmel also speaks to other truckers about how they can help too. TAT tells truckers that as the eyes and ears of the nation’s highways, they are “in a unique position to make a difference and close loopholes to traffickers who seek to exploit our transportation system.”
Sources: Americanow, WTVR
