Little girl starts screaming at passerby—a closer look at the security footage reveals the chilling reason why
Knowing how to defend or to be able to call for help when in danger is crucial for kids. Being little, there might not be much they can do, but even alerting passersby or distracting the suspect can be life-saving. A 6-year-old girl named Ken'Adi Nash suddenly screamed at a passerby, Good Morning America revealed. The nail-biting footage later revealed that the little girl did not scream for no reason or due to mischief. If anything, the scream saved her life. Her act became powerful when she found herself in a terrifying situation, and it's a reminder for parents to teach their kids to shout or alert someone if something's off.
Ken'Adi had just gone to take the trash out. It was a simple job of a few seconds. It was then that she let out a horrifying yell. The footage showed a suspicious man passing by their home just as the 6-year-old was outside. In a matter of seconds, he grabbed her tight and began dragging her along forcefully. "This guy walked by and he touched me. He pulled me," she recalled. The man was attempting to kidnap her, but she did not give in. She let out the loudest scream she could in that moment. In a matter of 10 seconds, when the alleged kidnapper thought he could get hold of her and move, she struggled, screamed, and refused to move.
The man quickly learned that the persistent 6-year-old was not easy to get and fled. "He just let me go because I screamed," the little girl remarked, per 6ABC Philadelphia. "He wouldn't have let go of her if she hadn't pulled and screamed like she did," Ken'Adi's dad, Ricky, added. She quickly ran back into her home and informed her dad about what had happened. The dad took his car and drove away to try to catch the man. "I chased him like he still had my kid. Definitely didn't want him to be able to snatch another kid," Ricky remarked.
The police later arrested 33-year-old Deric McPherson in connection with the case, giving the parents much relief. Mandie, Ken'Adi's mom, said that her daughter's single scream changed the course of what could have been drastic. "It's forever etched in our minds — that scream. So it'll always be with us," she noted. "I'm so proud of her. So proud of her," she added. Her simple reaction saved her, and Callahan Walsh, a child advocate at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, is commending and advocating the same.
"She did everything right in this case. She was kicking, screaming, pulling away. It's exactly what we teach kids to do when a would-be abductor tries to grab them. In fact, there's a lot to learn from these attempted abductions," Walsh explained. He even shared statistics from the organization and noted, "83% of the time, when a child can get away from their would-be abductor, it's something that they did proactively, like kicking, screaming, or pulling away, exactly what she did in this case. She's the reason why she's home safe tonight."
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