Women of Atmore were given another chance to learn how to defend themselves against potential attackers as Escambia County Sheriff Grover Smith held his second self defense class in as many weeks Wednesday at Atmore Community Hospital.

Smith was on hand last week teaching ACH employees, but this go around, he taught senior ladies some simple procedures that could save their lives. He also distributed police whistles to each lady attending the meeting to use as an alarm should they ever be attacked. In addition, he gave them ultraviolet pens to write their driver’s license number on their belongings and on the other end of the pen is a light for reading what has been written.

“Just remember, you all have cell phones these days, and that is one weapon you can use.” Smith said. “Dial 9-1-1 on your phone, but don’t push the send button until you decide that you need help. If you don’t have a cell phone, get an old one, and put batteries in. You don’t have to have a phone contract to use it that way.”

Atmore Community Hospital’s Women’s Auxiliary sponsored the program, which was aimed at getting information to ladies to let them know that they are far from being helpless in a terrible situation.

As part of this program, one victim was on hand to tell her story of how she used her head and followed some simple rules to keep from being killed.

Atmore Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Sheryl Vickery stood before the group of ladies and told her story for the first time before an audience.

“I had a plan,” she said. “I didn’t think about it every day, but it was in the back of my mind all the time. I also wanted to let you ladies know that you are not a victim if you remember the right things to do. One is to have a plan of what to do in this situation, and secondly, never, ever go with your attacker to a second location. Chances are that you will be killed at that second location. Stay low to the ground and go limp. Chances are pretty good he will not be able to lift you off the ground.”

For more on this story, see Saturday’s Atmore Advance.