it was a category 5 hurricane Irma a storm unlike any the Caribbean paradise of st. Thomas had seen before it was in some ways a perfect storm of chaos if someone's going to vanish from the island without any trace it could have happened then and that's exactly what happened 32 year old Hannah up a beloved teacher at a local Montessori School had ridden out the storm only to disappear 8 days later we were supposed to have a staff meeting Canada and show up nobody had seen her and then I went to her house and she
wasn't there and her car wasn't there she drove down to sapphire Beach which was her favorite Beach inside the car were all of her personal items there was no sign of foul play she simply vanished what many people didn't know is that this was not the first time Hannah had disappeared I did not know about her previous disappearances almost 10 years before Hannah went missing in New York City she was found barely alive floating facedown in the New York Harbor no memory of where she'd been for the past three weeks doctors diagnosed her with dissociative
fugue dissociative fugue means that you have a period where suddenly you've lost your autobiographical memories the memories that define you as you but not necessarily other memories this rare disorder is sometimes known as the Jason Bourne syndrome what's your name from the wildly popular movies about a CIA assassin who doesn't know who he is but remembers his training Elizabeth Vargas in a Andes the untold story vanished in Paradise retraces Hannah's life with dissociative fugue and the days before she disappeared Hannah grew up the daughter of two Methodist ministers in Oregon and at 23 became a
public school teacher in New York City everybody describes Hannah as a bright person engaging open in 2008 she left her New York City apartment to go running and then went missing New York City police thought you know we're dealing with a terrible crime here they were looking for a dead body Hannah up was last seen at her Hamilton Heights apartment last Friday she became a high-profile missing persons case she seemed to have vanished into thin air the NYPD says someone has caught a glimpse of a missing teacher ten days later she pops up at an
Apple Store of all places logging in on her own ID and security cam footage shows her being approached by a young man who knows her from school saying Hannah aren't your Hannah right aren't you aren't you missing and she says no I'm not Hannah and walks away so a person who has psychogenic fugue to people on the outside may look completely normal they're doing things they're they know how to do things they understand the world at large they don't appear to be distressed they're just in an altered state later she was spotted using her own
gym pass investigators were perplexed authorities couldn't track her down until she was pulled from the water by crew members of the Staten Island Ferry Hannah's mother Barbara Bellis remembers vividly the moment she found out her daughter was still alive early afternoon when the phone rang this is a nurse at the emergency room what did she say she told me that my daughter had been pulled out of the water and she was alive she was dehydrated badly sunburned and hypothermic but when I first saw her she had no idea what had happened what did she tell
you did she say mama hardly said she said I I'm fine but I'm scared I don't know what happened the documentary has this recording of Hannah up after she was rescued she's talking to a reporter in a New York City coffee shop after her fugue Hannah moved to Maryland and there had yet another episode many people her life believe she was looking to escape her past so in 2014 Hannah moved to the island oasis of st. Thomas she is the center of the party she threw herself into island life embracing a new set of friends
who shared her passion for Zumba but hurricane Irma wreaked havoc on the island and some of her friends say on Hannah to everybody was stressed out and she was certainly stressed out and certainly the day before Hannah disappears people noticed something was off she seemed to be almost in a trance dissociative fugue occurs in people who have suffered a tremendous trauma it may have been a trauma in their past or it might be a recent trauma like living through a natural disaster but Hannah's mother insists that for her daughter her fugue episodes do not have
clear triggers I think what's so mysterious is this idea that she loved her life she was a young woman who definitely loved her life that doesn't mean she couldn't have been struggling with something deep and dark inside of herself it's been almost two years since anyone seen Hannah her mother has become a fixture on st. Thomas she thinks it's possible but Hannah is still alive and is suffering from another few there are documented cases of fugue states lasting as long as four years yeah and that that helps me to keep on going it's never been
an option to give up and hopes the answer to where her daughter is can be found here do you think you'll ever know for sure Barbara what happened I can only tell you that that hope is persistent and many people join me in that hope and you can watch the untold story vanished in Paradise tomorrow night on Andy hi everyone George Stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our Channel
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