Dugard was just blocks from her home, and although she kicked and screamed as she was dragged into the car, it was 18 years before she was discovered in the home of Phillip Garrido, a registered sex offender, and his wife, Nancy, in Antioch, California.
Dugard had a childhood dream of becoming a model, but instead she is the mother of two children fathered by her abductor, a man who had been paroled after serving prison time for similar crimes.
Dugard, along with other survivors of kidnapping, has to find a way to battle back from her ordeal and rediscover her life, despite what was taken from her. She can learn from the stories of others, among the more than 2,000 children a day that go missing, according to www.kidsfightingchance.com.
Elizabeth Smart
Kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home on June 5, 2002, Elizabeth Smart was held for nine months by a homeless religious fantatic who wanted Smart as a plural wife, and his wife.
Smart was rescued after being spotted by a couple who had seen her case on "America's Most Wanted," and went on to become one of the most outspoken of survivors, sharing her story as she promotes victims' rights issues.
Now 21, Smart is a music student at Brigham Young University, and is working to put her ordeal behind her.
Peggy Ann Bradnick
When she was 17 years old, Peggy Ann Bradnick was abducted from her school bus and held captive for eight days deep in the Pennsylvania mountains by William Hollenbaugh, a disagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who had kidnapped Bradnick for companionship.
She was rescued by police as part of the largest manhunt in Pennyslvania history, but not before she was forever transformed by her ordeal.
More than 40 years later, Bradnick vividly recalls every part of her kidnapping in sharp detail, but she uses her story as a cautionary tale, reminding parents to be alert, to burn details of their children into their memory.
"When I was taken, they asked my mom for a description and she could tell them what I was wearing down to my shoes," she said during a 2008 speaking engagement.
Now a mother of her own daughter, Bradnick refuses to play the victim, despite her harrowing eight days in capitivity.
"Victims always look back, never reconcile, never understand. I am looking forward and upward to my Lord in heaven," she said. "So, victim I am not. Survivor I am."
Jessica Mullynberg
When Jessica Mullynberg was 13 years old, she was abducted from her Eau Claire, Wis., home by a neighbor and taken to Texas, where she was held for almost four months, facing a terrifying ordeal of physical, mental and sexual abuse.
"I was tied down to the seat. My arms were behind my back. I was terrified. I didn't know what was going on. He told me I wasn't going home and my name was to be Cindy Johnson, his name was Dave Johnson and he was my father. He'd tell me I was fat, dumb, ugly, unworthy over and over. I became brainwashed."
Mullynberg currently works with SafeAssured ID, a program that records a child's information such as fingerprints, photographs and voice recordings to assist parents if their child should become a victim of kidnapping.
She has earned a Courage Award from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children and is currently writing a book about her experience.
Shawn Hornbeck
Almost years after he disappeared on October 6, 2002, while riding his bike near his Missouri home, Shawn Hornbeck was discovered along with another kidnapped boy in an apartment in Kirkwood, Missouri
He told his story on an episode of "48 Hours," and in 2008 was working toward wrapping up his high school education with a 3.5 grade point average, and considering colleges for a degree in criminology.
Hornbeck tells his story on his Web site, www.shawnhornbeck.com, where he wrote on the one year anniversary of his rescue.
"I am so glad to be home. There is nothing else that can match the love of your family. For four and one half years I wasn't able to have that feeling. On January 12, 2007 my life changed again - it was the happiest and best day of my life."
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