Lorna and Nick with their daughters, Tenieka (left), Kiara (middle) and Miré.
"Honey, they want money. They’re going to shoot me. Please, please..."
Lorna Greyling collapsed after receiving the phone call. It was from her husband Nick, a Supersport sound engineer who’d been kidnapped by rebels in Nigeria.
They were demanding a ransom and Nick’s life was in danger. But there was a happy ending: after days of negotiations between the rebels and go-betweens from M-Net and MultiChoice Nick was freed and returned safely to South Africa.
However Lorna lived through an ordeal – during several phone calls she heard people apparently hitting Nick and he later told of gun battles between the rebels and Nigerian police as the kidnappers hustled him to a hideout,
"Words can’t describe how glad I am this is over," she said when they were reunited after the 10-day nightmare. "I’m so grateful. God, my friends and family carried me through this. I’ll never be able to say thank you enough that my husband has been released."
She had no idea what went through Nick’s mind while he was held captive in the bush. "We still have a lot to talk about. He has been through a terrible trauma. It’s a miracle he’s back safely.
"We haven’t been able to talk about everything but his stories will have you gasping for breath. He says most days he was continuously tortured. They shoved a gun in his face and screamed they were going to beat him."
* See the 18 March issue of YOU for the full, exclusive interview with Lorna Greyling.