A vacationing nurse became an unlikely hero when she stumbled upon two American women who reported being sexually assaulted at a Bahamas resort. The nurse, LaDonna Batty, was enjoying a drink with her husband when she was suddenly called upon for her medical expertise.
“It was like something out of a movie,” Batty recounted in a Zoom interview on Wednesday. “Someone came running around the corner, screaming for help. I followed them to the front office of the resort and what I saw was enough to scare me.”
The two women, later identified as Amber Shearer and Dongayla Dobson, were in rough shape – their bathing suits torn, their bodies covered in bruises, and their spirits barely hanging on. They were crying, vomiting, and fading in and out of consciousness. Without hesitation, Batty stepped in to help.
As a nurse, Batty could tell immediately that the women had been assaulted in some manner. She treated them as best she could with the limited tools she had, all the while trying to gather as much information as she could about their injuries and what had happened.
Meanwhile, the resort staff were reviewing surveillance footage to try and track down the alleged attacker. Batty, who was also shown the footage, saw the suspect being brought into the front office. But instead of showing remorse or fear, the suspect appeared to be nonchalant, playing on his phone as the traumatized women screamed and cried at the sight of him.
“I couldn’t believe how unfazed he seemed,” Batty stated. “It was like he was waiting in line at the DMV, not facing serious accusations of sexual assault.”
The resort, called Pirate’s Cove, has since released a statement denying the women’s allegations, instead claiming that their story “conflicts” with the resort’s surveillance videos. They have also fired the two staff members involved and are fully cooperating with the Royal Bahamas Police Force and the FBI.
But Batty, who was on the same cruise and coincidentally took the same excursion as the two women, stands by her initial assessment that something terrible had happened to them. “When I walked into that room, I could tell right away that these girls had been assaulted. Their injuries and reactions spoke for themselves,” she said.
Despite not knowing the women’s names, Batty made it her personal mission to check in on them and ensure their well-being. She even exchanged information with them at the airport, after they miraculously ran into each other after the cruise docked.
The women’s families are extremely grateful for Batty’s presence and her unwavering care and concern. Dobson’s mother, Frankie King, praised Batty as a hero who went above and beyond her duty as a nurse.
“She treated my daughter and her friend just like she would any other patient in her clinic. She made sure to check on them every day and even saved all her notes so that she could find them and follow up,” King said in a separate interview.
Batty, however, remains humble and insists that she was just doing her job. “I don’t want to say I saved them,” she stated. “I just did what I normally do as a nurse. All I could think was that these girls are someone’s loved one, and I would want someone to help if it were my own daughters.”
The Royal Bahamas Police Force confirmed in a statement that they have arrested two suspects in connection with the alleged sexual assaults.
The same week the U.S. put out a travel warning on the Bahamas, 2 American women thought they were enjoying a drink on the beach as their Carnival cruise ship was docked, but instead, Amber Shearer and Dongayla Dobson say staff members at a resort drugged and raped them…then… pic.twitter.com/LxOUM0AqBJ
— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 8, 2024
