Johannesburg - She was repeatedly hit with “a gun” in the face and sworn at by an alleged hijacker who wanted to drive off in her car with her four-month-old baby still strapped in his car seat.
But she wrestled for the firearm with her assailant until she grabbed it from him. And with all her might, she fired at the man, but no shots went off as it was a toy gun.
On Wednesday Precious Mbhele, 34, recounted how she fought off the man who tried to hijacked her VW Polo in Rosettenville, Joburg.
Mbhele, of Regents Park, also watched in horror as her child fell out of his seat and landed on the floor while the car was in motion as she and the assailant wrestled for the steering wheel.
Her ordeal ended when the car crashed into a wall and her assailant fled.
Mbhele’s agonising moments started at about 7.45am on Wednesday when she arrived at her pastor’s house to drop off her child, just as she had done in the past two months whenever she was on her way to work. She had parked at the gate and got out of the car without switching off the engine.
As she was reaching out for the baby, seated directly behind the driver’s seat, a man jumped into the car.
This happened while the pastor was approaching to take the baby. The pastor started screaming. “Sister Mbhele, what’s going on?” the horrified pastor asked.
As Mbhele was trying to unfasten the baby in his car seat, she saw the man moving from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat. And then the car started moving. Anxious to save her baby, Mbhele jumped into the vehicle.
“As he (the man) drove (off), I pulled the handbrake several times, telling him to stop the car so I could take out my baby and my bag,” she said.
“He pointed his gun at me and later hit me with it in my face.
“When he hit me the third time, I grabbed the gun, pointed it at him and pulled the trigger. I wanted to shoot him, I was ready to kill him. But it was only a toy as no shot went off… I started hitting him, telling him to let me and my baby go. I said I also wanted my bag and that he could take the car.”
But the attacker was determined to drive off in her car. “He was swearing at me, saying ‘b***h, leave me’.”
Mbhele said the haunting screams of her baby, who was by then hysterical, spurred her to fight tooth and nail.
“I was not going to let him take everything… my baby, my bag and my car.”
Mbhele said the man had at some point told her that he would stop and give her the baby and the bag, but that he was unable to open the door for her as he didn’t know that the car had a central-locking system.
He accelerated again, prompting Mbhele to start hitting him and asking him to stop. This time, she wrestled with him for the steering wheel. The car veered off the road when they reached a street with speed bumps and “flew”, she explained.
It was then that the baby fell off the seat and onto the floor. As the baby cried hysterically, Mbhele held on to the steering wheel. The car then struck a wall and came to a standstill.
Mbhele tried to hold on to her attacker in an attempt to stop him from fleeing, but he fled while she was picking up her baby.
Paramedics were called and Mbhele was taken to South Rand Hospital, where she and her baby were checked. Except for a minor cut on her face, she sustained no injuries.
“Even when he drew the gun I was not scared. But it was only after everything was over that it hit me. I believe God was with me all the way,” she said, cradling her sleeping baby in her arms.
The Star
* We have removed the picture of the mom at her request.