Austrian Teen Shares Her Nightmare

Kidnap Victim Tells Of Over 8 Years Growing Up In Underground Cell

(AP)  Repeatedly shutting her eyes against the glare of TV cameras, the Austrian teenager imprisoned for 8 ½ years described in a nationally broadcast interview Wednesday the horror of being locked into her dark underground cell for the first time.

"I was very distraught and very angry," Natascha Kampusch, now 18, told Austrian public broadcaster ORF in her first televised interview since bolting to freedom Aug. 23 while her captor busied himself with a cell phone call.

Early in her captivity, Kampusch said she threw water bottles at the wall in frustration and despair and would have "gone crazy" if kidnapper Wolfgang Priklopil had not occasionally allowed her upstairs six months after she was snatched off the street as a freckle-faced 10-year-old.

She felt claustrophobic in the small space and the wheezing of a ventilator that pumped air into her cell was "unbearable" Kampusch said in the interview — a 40-minute pre-recorded account that gave Austrians their first glimpse of the young woman whose nightmare entranced the nation.

For the first two years, Priklopil did not allow her to watch the news but then let her listen to the radio, Kampusch said. She was also allowed to read some newspapers, she said.

"He read it, I read it ... He always controlled everything," Kampusch said, describing how Priklopil would make sure she hadn't written any messages on the pages of the material he let her read.

"He was very paranoid," she said.

Since her escape, Kampusch said she had slipped away incognito to enjoy some ice cream.

"It was nice to smile at people, and no one recognized me," she said, dabbing with a tissue at her eyes, which ORF said were sensitive to light because she was confined to darkness for such a long time.

[photosbyshan]

She truly does seem like a fascinating, strong women. I don't think this experience will hold her back in life. I feel she has learned from it, and will go on to do great things. Good for her!

[bunionbabe]

Yea! Good for her! We should all spend 8 years as a prisoner of a *** maniac...jeesh...what a lunatic.

[glnnglnn-2009]

Miss Kumpusch is a very brave woman. She's going to have problems that will last the rest of her life. I hope she uses her fame in a postive manner to heal. My heart goes out to her. God be with you Miss Kumpusch.

[brett504-2009]

she was very brave and keep her faith in God. Now it over and that man will never see the light of day again, I Hope. I do not at all under stand how some one could do something like that to a person.

[hermit22]

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 2 Corinthians 3:17