Fast thinking saves 80 year old woman from intruder

[Jeff White]

Proves you don't always need a gun. I don't know why she didn't have a gun. It doesn't matter that she didn't have a gun. She kept her wits about her and got out of a bad situation. This thread is about keeping your wits about you and getting out of a tight spot. Comments about firearms or other weapons are not on topic in this thread.

http://www.stltoday.com/newsletters/s/1182/3/4/70494

Woman fakes attack, scares off intruder

HAMPDEN, Maine (AP) -- An 80-year-old Hampden woman who was watching the Super Bowl alone faked a heart attack to scare off a man who had broken into her home and was pushing her toward the bedroom, police said.

Daniel Thanem, 45, of Winterport was arrested a short time later and charged with aggravated criminal trespass and assault. Thanem is a convicted sex offender in Alabama, police said.

The woman was watching Sunday night's Super Bowl when she spotted a man walking through her house, said Hampden police Sgt. Dan Stewart. When she asked the man what he was doing, he grabbed her from behind and began pushing her toward the bedroom.

Stewart said the woman pretended she was having a heart attack and told the intruder her heart medication was in her car in the garage. After they retrieved the medication, the man fled.

"The lady had enough common sense to keep her wits about her to fake a heart attack and avoid becoming another victim," Stewart said.

Thanem was arrested minutes later near the home by police on routine patrol.

 

[BenjaminR]

Some of our senior citizens are pretty sharp (some, but not all). My grandma (in her 70's at the time) was telling me about how she was being followed by a man while driving around town. She decided to drive to the police station he followed her until he saw where she was going.

 

[TallPine]

Would not exactly be my first choice for a security plan, but heck - I've seen some stuff like that in old Roy Rodgers movies and it worked for the good guys every time

 

[sm]

Lady did a number of things correct as I see it.
She used her brain, kept her wits, thought "out of the box", and gave off a "perception(s) she was not going to be a victim/ would not be worth being a victim, she engaged without engaging, she does not have Problem 2 - she survived.

 

[benEzra]

My late aunt (probably in her late fifties at the time) lived in the San Francisco Bay area of California, and once found herself being followed by two men in an otherwise deserted level of a shopping mall parking garage, who were quite obviously closing with her and matching her movements. She waited until they were fairly close, and then dropped her shopping bags, spun, jammed her right hand deep into her purse, looked them in the eye, and said loudly and firmly "What the HELL do YOU want?" One of them yelled "She's got a gun!!" and they both turned and ran.

She didn't have a gun, actually...and while she was well off, she wasn't politically connected enough to get a CCW permit in the Bay Area, I'm sure. But whatever they were going to do to her, they didn't do.

 

[WeedWhacker]

There are only a few house rules:

1.) All topics and posts must be related to firearms or civil liberties issues.

Comments about firearms or other weapons are not on topic in this thread.

... my head hurts.

Anyhow, I'd venture to say that it wasn't fast thinking which "saved" the elderly woman as much as the crook didn't seem to be much of a hardened criminal. (Folks who follow modern law should know better than to take the "sex offender" tag at face value nowadays.) Much like the recent suggestion from the UK police that 'jumping up and down at muggers' is a good defense, it'll only work on crooks which never really meant any lasting harm in the first place.

I'm glad to hear that no one was seriously hurt - but I wonder if the ol' lady has since gone out and bought herself a nice revolver?

 

[Jeff White]

WeedWhacker,
Those are the rules for the forum as a whole. If they applied here in Strategies and Tactics we wouldn't be able to discuss pepper spray or stun guns or martial arts......and then there is the sticky little issue of the entire subforum Nonfirearm Weapons.....

If a member starts a thread here and wants to limit the discusion to self defense without firearms that is perfectly acceptable.

Jeff

 

[the naked prophet]

If a member starts a thread here and wants to limit the discusion to self defense without firearms that is perfectly acceptable.

That and he's a mod

On topic, I think this would have been a better way for it to end than if she'd had a gun and shot him. For all we know, she may have had a gun in her garter belt. If I was old enough to pull this off, and I thought it'd work, I'd try it before pulling out my CCW. I'd much rather call the police to report a guy running around outside than bleeding on my carpet inside.

I understand there's times when it's shoot-or-die, but unless it is that time, I'd rather do things her way.

 

[BigO01]

The lady certainly used her head , but you have to admit she got very lucky .

It is my understanding that most Professional criminals will make sure a home is empty before breaking in and those that don't don't care and are usually very dangerous to the occupants .

Even if she was having a heart attack it is a tossup as to whether he would have cared at all . He might just as well have stood there and wanted to watch her die for some kind of sick turn on .

 

[springmom]

The lady certainly used her head , but you have to admit she got very lucky .

My thinking exactly. The yahoo who broke in could just as easily have said, "Great, we'll leave the meds where they are, now get in the bedroom..." For that matter, when she went out to the garage to get the meds with the bad guy, she could have ended up in her trunk headed God knows where.

It would have been better, IMO, for her to have escaped the house if possible, called 911 if possible, hit the panic switch on her home alarm system (and if she doesn't have one, she knows she needs one now), thrown the cat at him...but not gone out to the garage with this guy.

Maybe it's just because living here in the Houston area, the kind of stuff that is regular fare on the nightly news makes me think that she had either a very tenderhearted bad guy or she used up a lifetime of good luck in about five minutes.

Springmom

Edit: Or she could get a snake....http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=253820