MBOMBELA – Their instinctive response to defend themselves was what saved Ms Trudie Lee (61) and her husband, Mr Doug Lee (66) when a robber attacked them in their Stonehenge home on Tuesday night. The couple spoke to Lowvelder about how the incident reminded them that vigilance is the key to safety.
At 21:30 on Tuesday Trudie opened the kitchen door to let their Jack Russell, Lex, out. The Lees have secured their home with makeshift door locks made from PVC pipes. The pipes, positioned indoors, keep the door handles from being pushed down from the outside.
As soon as she stepped out of the kitchen, a burglar came around the corner towards her. “His hands were covered with socks,” she remembered. In her hand, Trudie still held the pipe and hit the man with it. Meanwhile, her husband rushed to help her. Doug managed to overpower the criminal and pinned him town against a small wall about two metres from the door.
“I’m not a fighter,” Doug stressed. However, when faced with the crisis, he had no choice but to switch to self-defence mode for the sake of his wife and himself. His prior judo and karate training served him well in this regard.
“While Doug had the intruder pinned to the ground, I grabbed the closest thing I could find. It was a plant pot,” said Trudie.
Using the pot, she hit the perpetrator on the head. The couple saw the man fiddling in his pocket and assumed he wanted to take out a weapon of some sort. Doug lifted him off the low horizontal wall and pinned him against the kitchen’s vertical wall. The man eventually wriggled himself loose from Doug’s grip and stood still for a moment, staring at the couple in disbelief. “We told him to go away,” said Doug. The criminal hastily obliged.
Although nobody was seriously injured, Trudie did suffer from whiplash and bruises incurred during the attack. The couple phoned Bossies Community Justice (BCJ) after the incident and was very impressed with their reaction time. “They arrived in minutes,” said Trudie. ADT Security and the police were also called to the scene and arrived promptly, according to the Lees. No arrest has been made in connection with the incident.
It has caused the Lees to revisit their perspective on security. “People – ourselves included – tend to become less vigilant over time. What happened to us, should serve as a warning and reminder to everyone,”said Trudie. “Vigilance and precaution are key,” Doug continued.
The couple have had the same routine for a long time. “We should not have opened the door at the same time every day. This made it easy for the prospective burglars to establish our routine and decide when to strike. Another mistake we made was to do so one at a time, making the person at the door more vulnerable.” She added that it would have been wise for them to keep a can of pepper spray at hand when taking the dog out.
Mr Albert Gryvenstein and Mr Danie Theron of BCJ explained that the perpetrator had gained access to the Sunset View complex, where the couple resides, by bending open the palisades surrounding it and compromising the barbed wire fence. The Lees’ neighbour’s electric fence was cut as well. Apart from fencing, Gryvenstein added that proper lighting in one’s yard will make criminals who gain access to it visible, denying them the opportunity to lurk in the shadows, waiting to cause harm.
The couple’s reaction to fight back when under attack may have saved them from a worse fate. This reaction, however, does not come naturally to everyone. When faced with a dangerous situation, the brain chooses on of three responses: fight, flight or freeze. For those who do not switch into fight mode naturally, self-defence classes may be a valuable precaution. “Self-defence is very important,” said Doug. Gryvenstein and Theron agreed.
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