WESTLAKE, Ohio — Westlake-based TravelCenters of America has over 300 locations in 44 states. Charles Bernsen manages one of them, on Tuesday he told News 5 that he recalled one day his team alerting him to a woman who had been hanging around the store, spending most of her time in the bathroom.
"So, one of my crew went in and talked her into coming out, and we went to my office, and you could just tell the fear in her eyes, and she was constantly looking around seeing if they had found her," Bernsen said.
She was referring to a man who had been holding her captive in a nearby hotel and selling her for sex.
"Once I got her in my office, she just broke down and told me what was going on," he said.
A few years earlier, he said he would have likely overlooked the woman's behavior or worse.
"I might have run her out because that's just the gut instinct that we used to do in the old days is, we know what you were and we didn't want you on our parking lot."
So what changed for him? The training he and all of the nearly 18,000 TravelCenters of America employees now receive annually from TAT, Truckers Against Trafficking. TAT is an organization that since 2009 has been educating those in and around the transportation industry, said TAT's Sara Sefried, both truckers and workers like Charles.
"The idea behind that is if we were to provide them with information and education and how to identify human trafficking as its occurring and then equip them to then pick up the phone and call law enforcement or a human trafficking hotline, we can't measure how many victims could be able to be saved," she said.
TravelCenters of America CEO Debi Boffa said, "our team members are the eyes and ears of the highway and this is a responsibility that we do not take lightly. We are committed to help combat this crime. We're so proud in that we train our nearly 19,000 team members to look out for the signs of human trafficking and how to intervene."
To date, TAT has trained over 2.9 million people, including Charles. Training prompted him that day to call the National Human Trafficking hotline and lead the woman we now know as Nikki to safety. On Tuesday, Charles, Truckers Against Trafficking and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost were in Westlake to promote a new hotline, 844-END-OHHT. A number now live where Ohioans can report suspected human trafficking.
"Local hotlines are important because they allow the person who is taking the call or the report to connect the victim to social services who can provide their support services," said Sefried.
Last fall, Truckers Against Trafficking brought Charles and Nikki together six years after he helped her escape. A moment that changed not just her life but his.
"Since we've reunited almost a day doesn't go by where we don't talk," he said.
