“There’s hope in hard times”: ETSU student shares kidnapping story

ERWIN, Tenn (WJHL) – On August 20, 2023, Karis Warner was a week away from beginning her sophomore year at East Tennessee State University (ETSU).

“I had come down early before moving in to have a little retreat with my freshmen small group,” said Warner, who lives in New York.

Unable to move into her dorm, Warner was spending the night with a relative of 27-year-old Garrett Hensley, whom she first met that day.

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“They both suggested that he take me to go and kind of just drive around and look at the mountains,” Warner said.

Warner said that she and Hensley began the drive to the mountains when the conversation changed, causing Warner to become concerned. She said Hensley kept trying to offer her a drink.

“We park and we start walking on the sidewalk and we go into an open bar,” Warner said. “I realize immediately that this is a bar and I don’t want to be here, I’m not allowed to be here. At this point, I was like, ‘Ok, I don’t really want to be out with this person anymore. I’m sure the mountains are beautiful, but I can look at them another time.'”

Warner said she persistently asked Hensley to take her home.

“I asked him multiple times if he could take me back,” said Warner. “And he kept saying things like, ‘No, you’re going to love it. We’re just going to go. It’ll be fine.'”

When they arrived at the mountains, Warner said Hensley started drinking, which prompted her to demand to be taken home.

“Then we start driving down the mountain, and this is where things get very scary,” said Warner. “He’s continuing to drive very fast. At one point it turned so fast, the entire vehicle spun 180. And then at another point, he almost hit a truck, but he moves out just in time. I was very angry and I kept screaming at him to slow down and I was like, ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing this?'”

Throughout everything, Warner only had one thing on her mind.

“I was just praying to God,” said Warner. “I’m a Christian. I stand strong in my faith. I just kept praying to God, ‘Please, whatever happens, I know something bad is going to happen. Whatever happens, just keep me alive.'”

Warner said Hensley entered a neighborhood when she realized the window was all the way down. That’s when she saw her chance.

“I said to him, ‘If you don’t slow down and let me go, I’m going to jump out the window,'” said Warner. “And he’s like, ‘No, you won’t.’ And that’s exactly what I did. I pulled myself up out of the vehicle and jumped out the window. And I remember falling and I remember the back tire rolling over my leg.”

Warner was in a neighborhood unfamiliar to her, but she was alive.

“I remember just sitting on the sidewalk and just again, continuously praying,” said Warner. “I’m alive, that’s all I asked for, and that’s exactly what God provided for me.”

Warner said she began walking to a house in the neighborhood and saw someone pull into their driveway.

“I ask him, ‘Sir, could you please take me to the hospital?'” said Warner. “And he’s like, ‘Just give me a moment, just go sit on my porch, I have a wife and a child, I’ll be right back.'”

The man planned to take her to the Erwin Hospital, but Warner asked to be taken to one closer to ETSU, where she was treated for multiple injuries.

While in the hospital, one photo led Warner to have a friend by her side.

“That same weekend, I was on the lake with some of my friends,” Warner said. “We all took pictures and were posting on Instagram. But there was this one friend that I happened to repost. The wife of the man who took me to the hospital, she wrote down my name. She found my social media and was just trying to get some of my friends contacted. It just so happened that the one friend that I re-posted on my Instagram story had to leave the retreat early to go to work. And she works at the hospital that I was admitted to.”

The wife reached out to that friend to inform her that Warner was in the hospital.

“Out of all the people she could have reached out to, out of all the friends and people I follow on social media, she reached out to the one friend that was working at the exact same hospital that I asked to be at.”

Warner said her faith was the main reason she was able to get through the experience.

“People tell me all the time, ‘Wow, you’re so strong and so smart to think to do that,'” said Warner. “And honestly, I was not thinking at all. I’ve said over and over again, it was definitely God telling me what to do.”

Although her family was miles away, Warner was thankful for their support.

“[I am] very blessed to have super supportive parents,” said Warner. “I’m very lucky to have that support even from so far away.”

For Warner, the road to recovery wasn’t easy.

“I still have some pretty deep scarring on my elbow, some on my legs,” said Warner. “As far as mental recovery, I was doing ok. I think a lot of that is because I do have a big supportive group of friends and a lot of extracurriculars on campus that I involve myself in. And I promised myself that I wouldn’t let what happened change the outcome of my next semester. So just one day at a time, knowing my limits and just doing what makes me happy.”

When asked why she is sharing her story, Warner said she wants to inspire people.

“I don’t even need my name out there,” said Warner. “I just need people to know what happened and know that there is hope in hard times.”

Hensley has been charged with two counts of aggravated kidnapping and one count of reckless endangerment. He is currently out on bond, with a plea hearing scheduled for April.

Warner’s family started a GoFundMe page to help cover the cost of hospital bills and travel expenses for the family.

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