Nita Coburn, 69, thought she had locked her door when she left her two great-grandchildren in her car while she helped her daughter into a wheelchair at Atrium Medical Center’s ER Thursday.
A quick-thinking Ohio boy saved his and his sister’s lives after they found themselves in the back seat of a stolen car.
Nita Coburn, 69, thought she had locked her door when she left her two great-grandchildren in her car while she helped her daughter into a wheelchair at Atrium Medical Center’s ER Thursday, she told KSAT-TV.
But moments later she watched as a stranger jumped into her vehicle and tried to speed away.
“Every time I think about it, I want to cry,” she told the television station. “It’s the most morbid feeling in the world.”
Most terrifying of all was that Coburn’s 10-year-old great-granddaughter, Skyler, and 8-year-old great-grandson, Chance, were still in the car.
“That car didn’t bother me at all,” Coburn said. “It was them two babies. No one needs to feel that fear. No one does.”
Surveillance footage showed as the man, identified by police as Dalvir Singh, 24, take off as Coburn chased after him.
She managed to grab the driver’s side door and attempt to open it, but Singh allegedly slammed it shut. So she tried again.
“The second time he slammed it shut, I saw he had a hold of Skyler,” Coburn said.
Coburn said she held onto the driver side door as Singh allegedly dragged her along the pavement about the distance of four cars.
At the same time, Chance managed to pull Skyler from Singh’s grip and the children fled the car, the family said. Surveillance footage showed as the pair tumbled out the rear passenger side door.
“What Chance did was extremely heroic,” Middletown police Officer Connor Kirby told KSAT-TV. “It shows how extremely brave he was and how much he loved his sister.”
Coburn let go of her car once she realized her great-grandchildren were safe.
Her vehicle was found abandoned several blocks away. Singh was later arrested and charged with kidnapping, grand theft and felonious assault. He was being held at the Middletown City Jail.
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