Life in the Wilds of Alaska Helps Anchorage Woman Escape from Kidnapping in Mexico

October 10, 2006

Another Alaskan survival story but unlike the Young Man falling off the mountain while hunting this involved a Anchorage woman on vacation in Mexico. Taken by force into the jungle she kept her head and escaped at the first opportunity into the jungle. Then used her head to navigate a strange land to escape and get help. A good story very well worth the read.

An Anchorage woman fled on foot in flip-flops through a dark jungle early Friday morning to escape a group who had kidnapped her hours earlier in Zihuatanejo, Mexico.

Tammy Griffin, 46, a regional manager for The Hotel Group, slashed her feet during her flight but wasn’t seriously hurt, her three children said Sunday. Her husband, Mike Griffin, 52, also of Anchorage, was not seriously injured either, though abductors pistol-whipped him before taking Tammy, intending to hold her for ransom.

She escaped using survival savvy learned from growing up in Alaska and hunting bears and moose in the wilderness, her family said.

“She’s a survivor. She’s tough as hell,” said her son Taylor Tanner, 20, at the family’s home in East Anchorage.