In the heat of a dangerous moment, it can be hard to stay calm and not freak out.
Maddie Weiler, a brave 12-year old girl not only remained calm in a dangerous carjacking situation but also quickly outsmarted and even outfought the criminal in order to save her little sister from being kidnapped.
It all started when Maddie’s mom Brandie witnessed a car crash, so Brandie left the car and immediately checked out the scène to see if there were people in need of help. However, doing so left her car unprotected. It quickly became a potential target for a carjacker who was just lurking around.
The family from Williamsburg, Virginia was on its way to the Busch Gardens when the accident on the highway occurred. Maddie and her 7-year-old sister Mollie remained in the car and were shocked by the car crash.
“We saw the car crash happen right before us, two cars in front of us,” Maddie said to News 3.
While their mom was calling emergency services, the man that caused the accident desperately wanted to flee the scene. The police identified the man as Paul Salsman and it was clear he wanted to take Brandie’s van to get away – including Maddie and Mollie that were still inside.
“I could see him going towards the van, and I’m screaming,” Brandie recalls.
The man came closer to the van and managed to unlock the door and get inside.
“He was saying all these things like, ‘Let’s go’ and ‘I need to get to this place’,” Maddie said.
The man didn’t expect Maddie to put up much of a fight, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.
“I just went for it,” she recalls. “Nothing passed my mind except, ‘He is a psycho and he needs to get out of the car.’”
Maddie fought the man, punched him repeatedly and was yelling for help. As if this weren’t impressive enough, Maddie also remembered a neat little trick that her father told her to use in dangerous situations like these.
“I put the car in drive because that is a safety feature on the van, and held it there,” the 12-year old said.
Putting the car in drive wouldn’t allow it to move at all, so the man couldn’t get away.
In the meantime, Mollie had already made it out of the van safely.
“I thought he was going to take us,” Mollie said.
Even though Maddie suffered a fractured growth plate in her wrist as a result of her altercation with the man, he simply gave up and ran away.
Maddie comes from a brave family of police officers and firefighters, so you could say that preparation for dangerous situations is in her blood.
“She has always been told if anyone tries to take you, kick, scream, bite, hit, gouge out their eyes, whatever you have to do,” her dad Steven said. “This could have been an Amber Alert had it not been for her thinking.”
The criminal was later charged with carjacking, hit and run and driving while under the influence of drugs. The police later stated that he even tried to steal two more vehicles, but he was luckily taken into custody.
Maddie also wants to spread a message, which is to never, ever give up. “Just fight them,” she says.
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