Stabbed on honeymoon!
The fateful night..
Saturday 11th October 2008
A wedding is meant to be the start of something special. As a bride, you never imagine it could end in tragedy.But four years ago, in December 2004, I came close to death on my honeymoon in Kenya.
It happened just three days after my dream wedding to Mark Seaman, then 31. Everything had been perfect.The waves crashing against the beach, the blue sky and blazing sun…
'Just be happy,' my mum, Marie Blowers, then 71, had told me as I stepped into my satin ivory gown.
'I will,' I'd promised.
It meant so much that she and my brother, Lee, then 34, were there to share our special day. Mum and my dad, Tony, now 66, had divorced when I was 5, while Mark's parents had sadly passed away. So we'd settled on a low-key ceremony in beautiful Kenya.
I couldn't have been happier as Mum led me towards the aisle in the hotel grounds, to the sound of Masai warriors singing. After the ceremony, Mark and I spent two blissful days at our hotel, the Malindi Beach Hotel, talking about the future.
'I can't wait to try for a family,' I said, basking in the sun.
'Me too,' smiled Mark. 'You'll make a great mum.'
We spent the following day lounging round the pool then, in the evening, we joined Mum and
Lee at the Tropical Village Hotel, where they were staying.
Just before midnight, we called it a night. Holding hands, Mark and I walked down a little path towards the hotel reception.
'You looked beautiful tonight,' Mark whispered, as we passed a stocky guy in a bright shirt.
I smiled a 'hello' at the man, and he muttered something that sounded like German.
Then it happened.He reached into his bag, pulled out a 10in fishing knife and plunged the blade deep into my stomach.It felt as if I'd been punched.
The man just stood there as Mark frantically dragged me back towards the bar. I remember Mark shouting for help, and Mum's terrified face. I looked down and saw hardly any blood coming from the wound. Not good. I was a special constable and Mark was a police officer. With our training, we knew that meant there was internal bleeding. With my attacker on the loose, Mark and Lee carried me into the reception and laid me on a bench.
While Lee called an ambulance, Mark cleaned my wound with water.
'It's going to be OK,' he said shakily.
'Is it?' I gasped.
Or was my life over before my marriage had even begun?
An ambulance took me to a nearby medical centre, where doctors said I needed surgery.
'But the nearest hospital's in Mombasa, two-and-a-half hours away,' we were told.
The journey was terrifying. Every pothole the ambulance drove over sent pain shooting through my body. It was 4am before we reached the Aga Khan Hospital. After an
X-ray, I was taken into theatre. No one explained what was wrong or what was going to happen. And although the surgery went well, I spent the next four days out of it. It wasn't until five days after the attack that I learned what had happened…
'The man who attacked you was a German called Olaf Klinkusch,' a policeman told me. 'He also attacked a German woman and a Swiss man on the same night, after going on a drinking session. The Swiss man died.'
That could have been me.
'When we found Klinkusch in a hotel storeroom, he'd slit his throat,' the policeman continued. 'He'd also cut open his stomach and pulled out his intestines. He died.'
Horrific.
'I'm glad,' I raged. 'He killed a man.'
The next two days were so emotional. When Mum and Lee, who had to go home, came to say goodbye, I couldn't stop crying. I wasn't just an emotional mess, but a physical one, too. I had a huge dressing covering my entire stomach. On 18 December 2004, seven
days after the attack, I saw what was underneath for the first time.
'Oh my God!' I gasped.
My knife wound had been tiny, but now, stretching down to my pelvis, was a hideous, jagged scar.
'It's awful,' I sobbed.
'You were lucky,' the doctor insisted. 'The wound was 6in deep and 1mm away from a main artery.'
I knew I should feel grateful, but I was starting married life with a disfigured body. How could Mark fancy me now? And worse, the whole world had heard about what had happened.
BRITISH WOMAN STABBED AS KILLER TOURIST RUNS AMOK IN KENYAN RESORT, screamed
the headlines. I was discharged from hospital, and our holiday rep arranged a three-day stay in another hotel before booking flights back home. It was so weird. Because of my injuries, we were put in business class and offered champagne. It should have been the perfect end to a perfect honeymoon, but instead, I felt shaky and numb.
Back home, at our two-bedroom home in Lowestoft, Mum and Lee were waiting.
'Welcome home,' Lee smiled, showing me the little fairy lights he'd decorated the house with.
'Thanks,' I mumbled, wincing in pain as I sat on the settee.
We'd been due to move house that week, so the place was littered with boxes. But Lee had done his best to make it look homely. Over the next few weeks, I struggled to get back to normal. I was so ashamed of the scar, I kept my body hidden from Mark.
We were newlyweds. We should have been enjoying passionate nights between the sheets. Instead, I flinched whenever Mark touched me.
For weeks, I felt so unattractive, I wondered if I'd ever be able to make love to him again.
In February 2005, I plucked up the courage to show him my scar.
'How can you fancy me with this?' I sobbed.
'It doesn't matter,' he smiled. 'You're the only thing that matters.'
Finally, I felt brave enough to be naked in front of my husband.
Mark was so understanding, but I couldn't help reliving the stabbing. Up until then, I'd been a confident woman, holding down a job as a benefit fraud investigator, and volunteering as a special constable. But now, I just felt scared.
Before, I'd never thought twice about leaving the house alone. Now, I was wary even popping to the shops.
'I don't think I can go back to being a special constable,' I told Mark in March 2005.
'I've lost my confidence.'
For the next two months, I tried to get my life back on track. Then, in May, I missed a period. I was pregnant. Suddenly, I had something to focus on. Four months on, in September 2005, I even felt well enough to go on a little break to Cyprus with Mark.
I felt nervous being abroad again, but thankfully, we had a lovely time.
Five months later, on 9 February 2006, our son, Shaun, was born at the James Paget Hospital in Norfolk, weighing 7lb 7oz.
'He's a little miracle,' I smiled.
But I didn't get to hold him for long. Because of the scar tissue in my body, the placenta got stuck and I had to have an operation to remove it. It was the last thing I needed. But after a night in hospital, I was able to get stuck into motherhood full-time. And it suited me. I loved changing Shaun's nappy, getting up in the night to feed him, cuddling him…
It gave me a sense of purpose and made me realise how lucky I was.
And in April 2007, I was thrilled to discover I was pregnant again. On 14 January this year, I gave birth to another boy, Ben. This July, when I read about Catherine and Ben Mullany, the honeymooners from Pontardawe, Neath Port Talbot, who were shot dead in Antigua, I cried for them. I was one of the lucky ones. I must never forget that. I have a loving husband and two beautiful children. In that sense, my life is only just beginning.