A quick-thinking 10-year-old in Pennsylvania recently thwarted his own potential kidnapping.
Sammy Green was walking home from school in Pottstown on Friday, when a woman began following him, reported ABC 6 Philadelphia.
“(She) started walking with him and asking him where his family was, asking where his dad was,” Sam Green, the boy’s father, told the station Tuesday.
The woman then tried to lure Sammy into a nearby convenience store, Sammy added to CBS 10 Philadelphia.
“She was like, ‘I’m going to Wawa, are you going there? What are you getting from Wawa? Where’s your family at?’,” he told the outlet.
As he didn’t know the woman, the fourth-grader ducked into Dani Bee Funky, a store that was familiar to him. Sammy then approached a 17-year-old cashier named Hannah, telling her to “act like you’re my mom, this lady is following me.”
A surveillance video at the store captured the moment and shows the woman standing at the door as if she were waiting for Sammy Green.
Hannah then calmly walks over to the entrance, putting herself between Sammy and the woman, and locks the door.
“I am very proud of her,” the shop’s owner, Dani Small, told ABC 6. “Hannah is a 17-year-old young lady. She did everything correctly.
His Dad Sam had similar sentiments — and was also hugely relieved that his son followed the advice he’d previously given him on what to do in that very scenario.
“When we were watching that video, I cried every time I saw it,” he told the news outlet.
“To see my child looking for help because he was afraid basically for his life,” Sam Green told CBS 10, “that cuts you deep.”
“Think of every scenario and make sure that children know and also practice it,” he added. “Practice your situations and scenarios just like fire drills.”