Josie Bowers is a 19-year-old student from Ontario who went mega-viral on TikTok for sharing her story of how she evaded two men who attempted to break into her hotel room while she was on vacation with her family when she was just 15 years old.
In the video, Josie duets another TikTok that shows a wire device being used to slide under a door and open it from the inside. She told BuzzFeed she came across the device when she was alone in a Hilton hotel room and about to get into the shower.
"I quickly wrapped a towel around myself and went into the living room to see what [the noise] was. What I saw was very similar to the device shown in my TikTok. I quickly realized that this contraption was being used to open my hotel room door from the inside, and launched forward to slam the door shut as it started to open a crack," Josie told BuzzFeed.
Once the door was closed, Josie heard two men chatting before one of them called out to her that they were there for "room maintenance" to "fix her door." Josie told BuzzFeed that she opened the door a crack to get a quick look at the men, and immediately realized they weren't Hilton staff members.
"My main thought was that I was only in my towel, and I didn't have time to get dressed. My other thought was, do these men have weapons? If I stop them, are they going to try and hurt me or use force? I didn't want to be aggressive in questioning them, because I was unsure of how they would react. I was very young and confused by the situation. I didn't want to refuse them access to the room and create a scene if they were there to do a job. It was embarrassing to think they were potentially workers that I had locked out. This is why I opened the door a crack. I was afraid to be rude to people who announced themselves as employees."
Luckily, Josie listened to her gut and remembered that her stepdad — a police officer — advised her to never let intruders know you're alone: "I pretended to call out to my dad by saying, 'Dad, there are people here to fix the door.' I'm guessing once these men realized I was not alone and they might potentially come face-to-face with my father, they bolted."
