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Monday, September 28, 2009

The Night I Thought It Was All Over

I was 31, single, living alone, and just spent the evening with a friend watching TV and chatting at her place.  The drive home was short, approximately 10 minutes. My drive was a sporty little Mazda RX7.  Being single, I knew many of the safety tips, especially the one to be aware of my surroundings at all times.  While driving home, I kept an eye on my rear view window to notice if any cars were following for significant lengths of time.  There were none until the last mile or so when another car made the same turn I did, which was normal considering the route to my apartment community.  The last turn was a popular one for many drivers who lived in the same community as I did.

I turned into a parking space right in front of my apartment building and noticed the car that was following continued on.  Since my car was small, once I pulled into the space I was unable to see much since the car to my left was a Mercedes and sat much higher than mine.  I opened my car door and stood up to notice there was a guy who was walking at the far end of the parking lot. He looked over at me and asked me a question.  He was approximately 5-6 parking spaces over from where I was standing. I had to ask him to repeat himself since I couldn't hear what he was saying.  As I was asking him to repeat himself, all of the sudden I noticed another guy quickly get out of a vehicle that was still on the main drive (apparently the one that had been following me) and started coming toward me.  The one who had asked me something started walking toward me as well.

I lived in a very safe community. No crime ever happened here.  I knew.  I worked for the apartment management company.  But, my instincts told me this wasn't good.  It happened so quickly. I was stuck in between two cars parked very close to each other and didn't have enough time to get back in my car, start the ignition, and pull away.  Both guys got to my car in seconds. My car door trapped me from fleeing. A gun was put to my back and I was told to hand over the keys and my purse.


It was dark, about 11PM on a Friday night.  Why weren't cars driving by, I asked myself?  My building was at the beginning of a large community.  Cars normally drove passed every few seconds, especially on a Friday evening.  There must have been two vehicles following me and they somehow stopped traffic in both directions, I thought to myself.

The silver ring I was wearing was noticed, and he wanted that as well. As I was frantically trying to take it off, I felt a hand go down the inside of the back of the sweat pants I was wearing.  Fortunately, his hand quickly pulled out.  He must have thought I was wearing jeans and was searching for pockets.

As this was happening, the other guy got into my car from the passenger side.  They say you see your life flash in front of your eyes at moments like this, but not for me.  All that kept going through my mind was that I was going to be forced into the back of my very small car and it was going to be a very long night.  My heart was racing. Please don't push me into that car.  It was the loneliest moment in my life.  Luckily, I was told to not say a word, go to the back of the Mercedes, lean over the trunk with my arms spread out and stay there until they drove away or I would be shot.

It was over.  They were gone.  Thank goodness they just wanted my car and not me.

Have you ever had a brush with death? 

23 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow. Just..wow.

delicate flower said...

Every woman's nightmare. Sounds awful.
I've never had a brush with death, thankfully.
I'm glad you were unharmed....

yorksnbeans said...

Yes, definitely every woman's nightmare. Luckily, I was physically unharmed, but I still carry around the emotional scars to this day.

linlah said...

I seriously held my breath while reading.

Big Pissy said...

I'm like linlah: I held my breath while reading. NOTHING like that has happened to me. I've been lucky. *fingers crossed*

NobblySan said...

Whoa!!

I've never had anything that serious.

Nearest for me was when some drunken pilllock tried picking a fight with me on a train. I managed to keep him talking until his stop, when he got off, looking suitably pissed that I'd not wanted to fight with him. He was early twenties, tall, muscular, fit and out of his tree on something, probably booze - I was forty, short, unfit and knackered after spending the past few hours bored shitless on a train. A fight was never really on the cards as far as I was concerned.

Nearest to death was in the late seventies, when three mates and myself were on a camping holiday in the South of France. We'd gone to Monte Carlo for the evening, and as you'd imagine, it had loads of 5* hotels, but sod all in the way of campsites. We drove up a mountain track, and decided to sleep in the car. On this hillside-hugging track that we were on, we passed the burnt out shell of an old Peugeot, and parked up a hundred yards or so past it. Next morning, realising the track was a dead end we started to reverse back down the hill. As we got to the old Peugeot we stopped. Not only was the thing riddled with bullet holes, mostly describing delicate arcs, as though from a gently waved sub-machine gun, but there was only the narrowest of gaps between it and a sheer drop to the sea, some hundred feet below.

Our skilled and fearless driver, Mike, reversed past it with about a foot to spare before his tyres were over the edge, and with a considerable amount of sweat and cursing.

The scariest thing though, as we all realised - was that in the pitch black the night before, we'd driven throught that gap with the radio blaring, and all laughing and joking at about 30 mph, without a care in the world.

Matty said...

Fortunately they left you okay.

It's easy to give advice to someone when you weren't the person in that situation. But I did notice that you said there was no time to get back into the car, start the ignition and pull away. Perhaps not, but I'm wondering if you at least had the time to get back in and close and lock the door? Of course, it's easier said than done, and of course you were there and know better than me. If you had a remote, which you didn't mention, you could have hit the panic button.

At any rate, you were okay. Was the car ever found? And were those guys ever caught?

yorksnbeans said...

Nobs...I cringed just thinking about being so close to the edge. We were on one of your VERY narrow dirt roads up in the lake district a couple of years ago (barely wide enough for one car) going up the side of a mountain. I was panicking when we met up with another car coming the opposite direction. We, LUCKILY, were the ones on the inside and instead of the other car backing up, it decided to pass us. I never thought it would make it, but it did.

yorksnbeans said...

Matty...from what I remember, the other guy already was getting into the passenger side by the time I realized what was happening. Yes, the car was found, but I was not contacted until 90 days after the car had been towed. Apparently, it had been abandoned in the middle of an intersection with a blown motor and the dash components had been ripped out within hours of it being stolen. There is a law that tow companies must report abandoned cars to the police within 90 days of being towed. And, that's exactly how long they waited to make that call. They knew the owner, by that point, would have been paid off by the insurance company, so they would be able to buy the car for a good price. A racket in other words.

Anonymous said...

YnB,

That story sent shivers up my spine. I'm so sorry you had to go through that.

I was attacked once, and although they didn't have a gun, to this day if someone comes up behind me and I don't hear them, I lose it. I actually feel sorry for my co-workers sometimes:)

I am so glad you shared your story, I can only imagine how horrible that must have been for you.

Geonite said...

I've had a lot of brushes with death. One of the closest ones was when a horse reared up and knocked me down. I lost my vision for a few minutes from the blow to my head but sensed that the horse was over me so I started to roll. My boss told me that the horse landed with his front feet a second after I started to roll right where my had had been.

Geonite said...

That's supposed to read "right where my had been".

Geonite said...

OK this is ridiculous the word head keeps getting erased

nonnie9999 said...

holy crap, ynb, that's scary! nothing like that has happened to me, and i've been known to go out for walks in the middle of the night.

yorksnbeans said...

B...what happened?!

Geo...geez...that was close!! Scary! Thank goodness you had your wits about you to roll away.

Nons...BE CAREFUL!! Tsk, tsk...you shouldn't be walking alone in the middle of the night!

Anonymous said...

I think we all think we have brushes with death...but being at the end of the gun is a big one. I was in a near car accident with the kids today, but even that was different. I was in Iraq for a few weeks setting up communications equipment and we were fired on twice...but it was just random fire.

yorksnbeans said...

MTE...I just read your post...Holy Crap! Glad you all came out without a scratch! Whew.

I don't think I'd like to be in the vicinity of random fire. Scary!

Anonymous said...

Of course I have a story Yorksnbeans (not mine but someone in my town). A few years back a woman was driving by herself late at night, when a car suddenly appeared from behind and began tailgating. After a few minutes it began flashing it's high beams at her. The woman became scared and accelerator away but the car kept following and kept on flashing. She began taking side streets in the hope of losing the car, but no luck, it kept following right behind. Eventually she decided to drive home and make a run for it. As she drove into her driveway, the man leapt from the car and shouted "run". He raced over to her car and pulled out a man dressed in black who had been hiding in her back seat. Evidently he had seen the silhouette of the man bobbing up and down. So he kept flashing the high beams to let her know. When police arrived they found a knife lying on the car floor.

To this day I always check my backseat before I drive anywhere at night!

Anonymous said...

wow, YnB, that is so scary! I've been in a few sticky situations but nothing as bad as having a gun pointed at my head

1. I was in a plane that lost cabin pressure and dropped 30,000 feet out of the sky

2. I fell off a horse when I was about 11 and it galloped off with one of my feet caught in the stirrup, dragging me round the paddock with it

3. when I was about 18 a pest exterminator tried to rape me while I was home alone. I did a lot of screaming and kicking and yelling Fire and a neighbour came running so he took off.....

yorksnbeans said...

Loon...coming from you I wasn't sure if there was going to be punch line! :-) That lucky woman!

NM...Whoa! I think you're 3 surpasses my one!

Bill Lisleman said...

I never had anything like that. I've thought I was being followed before but nothing happened except getting scared. Near miss auto accident or two.

Do you think the police even tried to find those guys?

yorksnbeans said...

I really don't know what happened to the guys, if anything.

Anonymous said...

I was walking home from work when it happened. Thank God it was near a highway and a man drove up to help me.

The crazy part was that it was two females. Which is why I was at least able to try and fight back.


I feel for you, YnB.