A BRITISH holidaymaker has told how she fought for her life after being attacked by an armed robber in her hotel room while on a dream holiday in Grenada.
Dolores Dillon, from Berkshire, refused to name the hotel, but told The Voice it was only by using her hands and fighting off her machete wielding attacker that she escaped the April 19 attack near the island’s Morne Rouge beach.
Dillon said she was telling her story now to warn other holidaymakers who are planning their summer holidays.
Struggling to move stiff fingers on both hands that have been left with scars from deep cuts, Dillon recalled how she was sleeping in her hotel room when she heard a loud noise.
“At first I thought it was the TV. I got out of bed to see what it was and to ensure the patio doors were securely locked and returned to bed,” she said.
However, a few minutes later, there was a loud bang and a man holding a machete appeared.
The mother of three said she still vividly remembers her shock.
“We didn’t exchange words. He dragged me off the bed. I held on for dear life. He put the blunt side of the cutlass against my neck and began choking me. I was fighting for every breath. I was fighting for my life. I tried prising the cutlass off. I didn’t think I was going to survive. Then he began to strangle me and I thought that was it.”
She then decided to fight him in an effort to free herself.
“As I was pulling the cutlass off, it started to cut my hands. I didn’t even feel it. My main aim was to stay alive.”
Dillon, a regular church goer, said she then started calling on God to help her.
“I said ‘Jehovah’ three times as loudly as I could,” she recalled. “I thought he was going to rape me but he didn’t. I thought I was going to die when he shouted ‘Where’s the money?’ I told him where it was. He ended up running off with £900 worth of travellers’ cheques, which he thought was money because it was heavy.”
After her attacker left, Dillon ran out of her room, knocking on several doors with her badly wounded hands to raise the alarm.
“There was blood everywhere on my night dress. The dogs came to my rescue and the security was alerted by the dogs barking. I literally left a trail of blood.”
She was hospitalized in Grenada and later had to undergo plastic surgery on her hands when she arrived back in the UK.
“The cuts were very deep” she said “My husband had to do everything for me. I can’t even dress myself three months later. I still can’t drink out of a cup properly and I have to use a straw.”
She added that more than three months on, “I can’t sleep at night and I can’t be left alone in the house by myself. I love Grenada, it’s my homeland, but I won’t be returning, even though I have family out there. I have too many anxieties and nothing can compensate me for my ordeal.”
Sergeant Quinton Charles, the Grenadian police officer in charge of the case, told The Voice that Dillon’s attacker had been identified and arrested. “He’s going to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law” he said “Someone attacking tourists is not something that happens often in Grenada. This sort of thing is very rare. It comes as a surprise. Grenada has one of the lowest crime rates in the Caribbean. It’s one of the safest Islands to travel to.”