Con-way Truckload Driver Honored for Helping to Save Kidnapped Woman
Con-way Truckload driver Kevin Kimmel was honored April 3 for helping save a kidnapped woman who had been forced into prostitution.
Kimmel, from Tavares, Florida, called the police after spotting a distraught-looking woman in the window of an RV when he pulled into a Virginia truck stop Jan. 6.
Kimmel later told the media he "saw a guy come up and knock on the door, then go inside the truck stop, then quickly came back and knocked again All of the sudden, the thing was rocking and rolling."
When police arrived, they discovered an Iowa couple and a 20-year-old malnourished woman who said she had been kidnapped, sexually abused and forced into prostitution.
“I’m just happy I helped her,” Kimmel said in a statement.
He received the 2015 Harriet Tubman Award and $2,500 from Truckers Against Trafficking for alerting authorities.
“Driver Kevin Kimmel's actions in reporting the suspicious activity he saw while resting at a truck stop is exactly the type of action we want to recognize with the Harriet Tubman Award," TAT Executive Director Kendis Paris said in a statement. "This award was created to honor a member of the trucking industry each year whose direct actions help save or improve the lives of those enslaved or prevent human trafficking from taking place."
During the ceremony at Con-way Truckload’s headquarters in Joplin, Missouri, Kimmel also received the Truckload Carrier Association’s Highway Angel Award.
The Harriet Tubman Award was named after the famed abolitionist who transported 300 slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad.
Con-way Inc. ranks No. 4 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
VIDEO: Kevin Kimmel Interviewed by KSN
