An SMS and social network frenzy saved a Joburg man who was trapped in his car boot after being hijacked at the weekend.
The man was driving through Honeydew at about 9pm on Saturday when two armed men hijacked his Golf 3. They forced him into the boot of the car and sped off.
But they forgot one thing: his cellphone. From inside the boot, he sent an SMS to his girlfriend.
“Be on the look for DSS041GP,” she tweeted soon after. “My boyfriend has just been hijacked and is in the boot please RT (retweet).”
It was 9:11pm.
Seven people retweeted the plea.
Friend Tanisha Reddy took it viral minutes later, sending the message to cyber police basher and roadblock exposer PigSpotter.
“Please RT @PigSpotter my friend was just hijacked and is in the boot of his car, Honeydew area reg no DSS041GP Golf 3 maroon in colour.”
The cry for help was retweeted again and again by PigSpotter's more than 109 000 followers - including members of the private security industry. They immediately began rallying their resources.
By 10.05pm the companies were mobilising their units and calling on every contact to track the victim's active cellphone signal.
“We have co-ords,” read the 10.20pm tweet from K9 Law Enforcement, a security services company co-founded by Big Brother star Bradford “Bad Brad” Wood.
The Golf was headed south along the N1, speeding towards Kroonstad in the Free State.
Then, silence in the Twittersphere. “Any updates?” asked a desperate Reddy.
“We trying to intercept from both ways!” responded community emergency service and rescue team Riga Rescue.
It wasn't until 11.08pm - more than two hours after the first tweet - that word came through.
“Just received a call, the police have found him in Ventersberg (about 250km south of Honeydew),” tweeted Reddy.
The hijackers had driven straight into a roadblock. They abandoned the car, escaping. No arrests were made. The victim was shaken, but unharmed.
Reddy later tweeted: “There are a lot of brave people out there everyday risking their lives in our time of need, tonight I have seen it thank you to all who helped.” -The Star