Opinion ID: 8704097
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Injuries of Hostage Plaintiffs

Text: 28. Plaintiff Marvin Wilson remembers being “fearful” that he would be murdered on the spot when the terrorists first approached. Marvin Wilson Deck ¶ 6. He was “terrified” and had “no idea what was happening or why [he] was being taken hostage.” Id. ¶ 8. He was “horrified” and “completely at [the] mercy” of the terrorists. Id. After the forced march began, Mr. Wilson remembers “thinking that perhaps this was a horrible dream of some kind” because he “just couldn’t fathom that [he] had suddenly been taken captive by armed guerillas.” Id. ¶ 9. He became “panicked” and “worried about what [his] family would go through if [he] disappeared and never returned.” Id. ¶ 10. He recalls that the PKK gunmen “looked like they wanted to murder [the prisoners] always with ruthless glares and stern presence.” Id. ¶ 16. When one of his fellow captives became injured and the PKK gunmen refused to provide assistance, Mr. Wilson remembers thinking that “this was the end — that any moment one of the terrorists would unload one of their clips of ammunition into [him].” Id. ¶ 20. He says that the prisoners “understood that [their] lives meant very little to these hardened guerillas.” Id. ¶ 21. During the entire ordeal, he says, “[he] did not know whether [he] was going to live or be murdered at any time. Being under the constant threat of death and having loaded weapons pointed at me all the time was extremely gruesome.” Id. ¶ 28. 15 29. The kidnapping had lasting emotional and psychological effects on Mr. Wilson. Even now, “so many years later,” he says that “the pain fear, and anxiety that [he] experienced still seems so fresh to [him],” and that “[t]he trauma of being a hostage is something [he] carries] with [him] all the time.” Id. ¶ 28. He states that he remained worried “that there may be reprisals against [him] or [his] family from people affiliated with the PKK,” and that he remains “nervous” about “a PKK loyalist someday showing up at [his] door seeking revenge against [him].” Id. ¶ 30. While Mr. Wilson has returned to Turkey since the kidnapping, he states that he “will never travel at night anymore, especially in the Kurdish areas.” Id. ¶ 32. His wife, Renetta, states that, although he was not a “drastically changed man” after the incident, Mr. Wilson was “very disappointed and depressed” about the failure of the archeological project that had been the basis for his trip to Turkey. Renetta Wilson Deck ¶¶ 17,19. 30. The kidnapping had lasting effects on Mr. Wyatt as well. According to the affidavit testimony of his widow, Mary Wyatt, Ron returned home in “relatively bad shape” as “his leg had been badly injured during the abduction.” Mary Wyatt Deck ¶ 11. Mr. Wyatt “never fully recovered from this injury” and “[f]rom that time he always walked with a a limp and after a few years, he often needed the assistance of a cane to get around.” Id. In addition, according to his widow, Mr. Wyatt’s “demeanor changed for the worse in a significant way after the abduction” and he “seemed to be preoccupied all the time” and to have “lots of pent up anger.” Id. ¶ 12. He was “anxious” and “under tremendous stress.” Id.