We all like to think we know exactly how we would react if thrust into a high-pressure, high-stakes situation.
Years of gobbling down nail-biting action flicks and series packed with heroes ready to risk everything at a moment’s notice have somewhat diluted the way we see and anticipate reality.
The cold fact of the matter is that many of us run-of-the-mill, everyday folk – those not used to living their lives in any sort of danger – have a tendency to freeze up in emergency situations. It turns out fighting off the bad guy or running into the burning building isn’t actually what we humans are programmed to do right off the bat.
Which is why it’s all the more impressive when people who end up in such scenarios – often through no fault of their own – do face up to the challenge in front of them.
As per reports, gut instinct took over for one man who stopped for an oil change on Sunday, November 6 in Warner Robins, Georgia.
Kelcey Willis had pulled into a Walmart to have his oil changed when he heard screaming.
“As buddy was filling us in to get our oil change, we heard a little kid screaming. So we turned to the corner down there and we seen him getting snatched out the car and the man was taking him behind the building,” Willis explained.
“We thought he was using the bathroom, but it took him way too long to come back from behind the building.”
The child in question continued to scream, and before long it was enough for Willis to convince himself that something wasn’t right.
“The screaming kept getting louder and louder and that didn’t sit right with us. My first instinct was to grab my gun and go get that kid out the woods,” he said.
Willis went to investigate, and with every step became more and more sure that he was approaching a hostile scene.
“I heard the kid screaming, ‘Please don’t beat me!’ so that’s when my instinct kicked in some more; so I sped on up to go get that kid,” Willis explained.
As he reached the woods, it had become obvious that the child was in serious danger.
“By the time I came around the corner, he was on top of him choking him, and at that point, I just put my gun up and held him at gunpoint and grabbed the kid,” said Willis.
Willis, along with several others, held the assailant until police arrived.
Willis said: “If I ain’t step in and I ain’t react as fast as I did, the kid would probably be dead … He would’ve choked the child cold. Once we got the kid out the woods, he said the man was going to beat him and leave him for the animals.”
Warner Robins Police, meanwhile, confirmed that the child and his attacker are related, and so the matter is no longer being treated as a kidnapping.
Instead, the perpetrator, 67-year-old Haimnarine Doobay, was charged with aggravated assault and cruelty towards a child.
Wow! Thank god Willis was there and ready to intervene. Who knows what would have happened otherwise?