SAN ANTONIO -- Carjackings are rare. But when they happen, they are quick and dangerous.
What if it happened to you? How do you think you'd handle it, especially if you had a child in the back seat?
Safety experts say carjackers use fear and force to commit their crime. And most of the time, victims later say it happened so fast, they had no idea how to react.
Having someone stick a gun in your face and demand your car is clearly one of the scariest experiences an average person can go through. But it's how you react, just seconds later, that safety experts say can determine how safely you get it out of it.
"There's a lot of people who have been shot in carjackings and have lost their life, people who are pistol-whipped and beaten and put in the hospital for months and months," said self-defense expert Pete Hardy.
Hardy uses a car inside his
Krav Maga Gym on the Northwest Side to teach people how to handle a carjacker.
"They (carjackers) want it to happen very quickly," Hardy told News 4 WOAI. "They're going to step up and present a weapon, as a rule, and, uh, tell you to get out of that automobile, and jump in and take off."
A carjacking can include a 'worst case scenario' for parents when a child is in the backseat.
"The most important thing is to protect your child at all costs," said Hardy. He added, "When they (carjackers) step up and want that car, things are happening very quickly, and there's a lot of screaming and yelling going on. Gun presented to the driver side, telling you to get out. Get out and by the time we can get to the 'there's a child in the backseat issue,' they're already exited and gone."
Hardy said in the cases he's seen from working with law enforcement, the carjackers don't want the child and will usually dump him or her somewhere.
NBC Dateline recently featured video showing a carjacker being chased by police who tossed a child in a car seat out of the car. Fortunately, the baby wasn't hurt.
"You're going to have to make sure that you're the barrier between your child and the attacker," stressed Hardy.
Since most of us aren't skilled in self-defense, Hardy says your best bet is to plead with the carjacker, let him know you've got a child in the backseat, that he can have the car, and all you want to do is get your child.
Hardy does not recommend confronting a carjacker, unless you get training.
"Anybody can learn how to do this, Hardy said. "It can be man or woman. It makes no difference whatsoever."
But, it takes a lot of practice to get to a level that might allow for you to fight back. So Hardy never recommend fighting someone with a gun if you haven't been properly trained.
