Woman who survived killer cutting off both her arms reveals how she managed to stay alive
Warning: This article contains mentions of assault and violence that some readers may find upsetting
Close to 50 years ago, a teenager named Mary Vincent was hitchhiking when she found herself in the company of Lawrence Singleton, a rapist and murderer who would go on to put her through an ordeal many wouldn't survive.
From California, Mary was hoping to make it to her grandfather's house after escaping an abusive environment back home, and when Singleton offered her a ride in his blue van in 1978, she accepted.
Taking them off the beaten track, the former merchant seaman knocked his fearful passenger unconscious with a metal hammer, before completely stripping her down.
What Mary endured at the hands of Lawrence Singleton
Tied up, Mary suffered repeated sexual assault at the hands of her driver, ignoring for hours her cries and pleas to be set free, per court records seen by PEOPLE.
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When the assault finally ended, Singleton wasn't finished, and he used a hatchet to sever both of her arms, before throwing her down a ravine and leaving her for dead.
Miraculously, Mary was not dead. She powered through her horrendous ordeal and help to deliver justice to her attacker, who would be sentenced to 14 years in prison for what he did to her.
But how did the 15-year-old Mary manage to survive such an ordeal, out in the middle of nowhere?
Recounting the moments after losing her arms on the YouTube series What It Was Like last month, Mary spoke viscerally of what she needed to do.
How sticking her arms in mud helped save Mary's life
"I had to stop the bleeding from my arms because I'm moving now and my blood is leaking, and I only have so much blood in my body," she said.
"So I stuck my arms in the dirt and packed it. It acted like mud because it got gelled with the blood, but it stopped me from bleeding."
She proceeded to walk approximately four miles before encountering her first would-be saviours. However, at the sight of her, they fled.
"The first people that stopped were in a red sports car and they had cowboy hats on," she recalled. "One had a white felt cowboy hat on and the other had a straw cowboy hat; I'll never forget their faces and they'll never forget mine.
'I look like something out of one of those horror movies'
"I'm all naked, covered in blood, but I have no hands."
"I look like something out of one of those horror movies and those two guys freaked out. You could see the tyre marks because they peeled out so fast, and I said, 'Please!' when I asked them to help me, and they left."
"Oh God, do I still have to keep walking?" she remembered thinking.
"Just a few minutes later, a beat-up pickup truck comes pulling in. I told God, 'OK, I asked nicely the first time for somebody to help me, and I said please. This time, they're gonna help me or not, they're gonna have to run me over!'"
According to Mary, she then stood right in their way while screaming as loud as humanly possible. And it worked.
"The guy came out running real fast and picked me up, and his wife opened the passenger door," she continued.
"They were just trying to keep me awake and keep me talking, and all I could think of was: I don't feel very well, I want to go to sleep."
What happened to Lawrence Singleton?
After serving just eight years of his 14-year sentence, Singleton was released. But in 1998, nearly two decades after his attack on Mary, he was convicted of murdering mother-of-three Roxanne Hayes, and was given the death sentence.
However, he died of cancer in 2001 before being executed.
Speaking of Singleton reoffending and killing an innocent woman, Mary - who has since relied on prosthetic arms - told UPI at the time that she was devastated 'because it had to happen again before anyone realised he shouldn't have been released in the first place'.
Mary went on to marry and have two sons, and she has used her platform to draw attention to specific laws and legal loopholes that allow perpetrators to escape real justice.
Dan Seddon