Watch: Alleged Robbers Flee as Woman Turns SUV Into 2-Ton Wrecking Ball
A South African woman is going viral after she used her SUV as a wrecking ball to thwart an attempted armed robbery.
According to News24, the incident occurred in a suburb of Alberton. The 42-year-old woman had been followed by a group of hijackers on August 27.
“My 9-month-old grandson would have been in the car with us, had it not been for a change of plans,” the woman, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, told News24.
The group followed her to three separate places, the final one being the local mall. As she pulled into the driveway of her home, the hijackers decided to make their move. They followed her in, managing to get past the gate before she could close it. They then ran out of the car toward her SUV.
“I was ready to open the boot to my car, when I saw the white car behind us,” the woman said.
“I told my daughter, ‘don’t get out, just close your door.’ When I saw the men approaching us, and I saw their guns, I told her, ‘here comes trouble.'”
While she hit the panic button, help clearly wasn’t going to arrive in time; the robbers began beating on the windows of her Jeep with their weapons.
“The guys started getting more aggressive and more aggressive,” she said.
“I kept talking to (my daughter) and I even turned the radio up, so she wouldn’t hear the hammering of the gun against the window or their shouting.
“Those seconds felt like an eternity.”
That’s when the woman took action. She threw the car into reverse and hit the robbers’ car, sending them back almost through the gate. The woman said the decision to strike back was, at some level, an unconscious one.
“Before I realized it, the car was in reverse,” she said.
“I thought if I could only ram them past the gate, we could close it behind us.”
The men began to get in their car, although they hadn’t been pushed back past the gate, and put the car into reverse trying to escape. The woman again reversed, essentially wrecking their car with two tons of steel. She then hit them again before they could drive away, forcing them to flee down the street on foot. According to News 24, the five suspects were caught in Pretoria days later as they were about to pull off a similar hijacking.
“When I saw the video footage for the first time the following day, that’s when I realized what I had done,” the mother said.
As self-defense goes, an SUV isn’t exactly up there with a firearm, but it certainly did the trick in this case. As always, situational awareness is also key; know if someone’s following you and take appropriate precautions.
However, this SUV driver did pretty well given the circumstances and only ended up with some minor scrapes from the whole experience. The family has since been going to trauma counseling, but given the situation, that could have been a whole lot worse.
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