We all know that if we find ourselves in a situation where we’re held hostage, we need to stay calm and think about how we can save ourselves and ask for help.
Well, easy as that may sound, it definitely isn’t. If you have an armed guy right next to you, threatening you and your children, it’s difficult to think clearly and do the right thing.
A mother in Florida, however, managed to use brilliant thinking. She was able to save herself and her three children by ordering a pizza from the local Pizza Hut.
Cheryl Treadway, 25 at the time, is a mother of three. A few years ago, she was in a relationship with 26-year-old Ethan Nickerson.
That day, she was allegedly held inside her residence by Nickerson, who was threatening her with a knife.
At some point, she asked to leave the house in order to pick up her children from school, but her boyfriend wouldn’t let her leave without him.
He grabbed her, took her smartphone from her, and accompanied her to the children’s school. They picked up the kids and returned to the house, where he held all of them hostage for quite some time.
At some point, Treadway, who had to think quickly and smartly, told him that she had to order something for her kids to eat.
The woman finally was able to convince Nickerson, who is believed to have been high on drugs at the time, to give her her phone, but only for the order.
The young mother took her phone and opened Pizza Hut’s smartphone ordering app, and ordered pizzas for them. But she didn’t stop there.
In the comment section, she wrote “911 hostage help”. And, to be sure that they wouldn’t miss her message, she also left another one in the customer name section.
“Please help. Get 911 to me” she wrote.
“We’ve never seen that before,” Candy Hamilton, the Pizza Hut’s manager, told WFLA. “I’ve been here 28 years and never, never seen nothing like that come through.”
The chef of the restaurant, who was the first one to see the message, admitted that he was scared for the person who wrote it.
The employees of Pizza Hut called 911, and the police soon arrived at the woman’s house. It was then that the man realized what had happened.
As expected, he didn’t want to go outside at first because as he said, he knew he would be going to jail.
Treadway first left the house with one of her children and let the officers know that Nickerson was inside with her other children.
After a 20-minute conversation with a lieutenant, he was convinced to come out peacefully, allowing the officers to remove the children.
CBC News reported that the man, who was arrested, was then “charged with aggravated assault with a weapon without intent to kill, battery, false imprisonment, and obstructing justice by depriving communication to law enforcement.”
Thank goodness the mom had the brilliant idea to get help through her pizza order – and that it worked!
Watch the restaurant employees and officers involved in this story talk about it in the video below!
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
