Posted on 11/29/2005 6:17:26 PM PST by sittnick
Woman, 76, fends off teen, would-be robber By LORI PILGER / Lincoln Journal Star An Omaha teenager picked the wrong 76-year-old woman to mess with Sunday afternoon. It’s as simple as that.
Pearl Fritts planned to visit her 95-year-old mother at Lancaster Manor on South Street after church. She stopped behind the nursing home to take care of her recyclables when she heard a quiet, little voice behind her ask if she wanted help.
Pearl politely said no thank you, and that’s when police say the teenager struck her.
“She just slammed my head against that bin,” Pearl said. “I was so shocked.”
Pearl said she’s slow to anger, but instinctively dropped the bags and turned around with her fists up.
“I think she was surprised that a little old, gray-haired lady with glasses would come around swinging,” she said.
Mopping up the blood from a cut on her forehead as long as her index finger, Pearl said she asked the young woman why she did it, and the teen told her she wanted her car.
“Here I am in a fistfight for my car,” she said.
When the teenager — who Pearl said stood a few inches taller, but didn’t weigh more than 100 pounds — realized she wasn’t going to get the car, she ran down South Street.
Pearl drove herself home (she had left her keys and her purse sitting in the car) and called her sister to take her to the hospital. When her sister didn’t answer, she went to her neighbor’s house, holding a blob of bloody paper towels to her forehead. The neighbor gave her a ride.
Pearl said she just knew the officer who took the report wanted to crack a smile when she explained what happened.
Police picked up the teenage assailant, a perfect match for Pearl’s description, at a Little King restaurant nearby.
Officer Katherine Finnell said the 17-year-old from Omaha had run away from a Lincoln treatment center and was looking for a way to get back to Omaha.
As for Pearl, she got a scolding from her doctor on Monday and admits fighting back probably wasn’t the smartest thing she’s done.
She said she's been telling people she hasn’t been in a fistfight since she was a kid, but honestly she doesn’t even remember one then.
“If this never happens again it will be too soon,” Pearl said. “Unbelievable.”
Reach Lori Pilger at 473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com.
next time, granny should be packing heat.
Go, Granny, Go!
Stupid doctor! It was exactly the RIGHT thing to do!
If you're going to go down, Go Down SWINGING!
Uh huh.
If she had been this time, there would be one less teenage druggie for someone else to deal with in the future.
GO, Granny!
Darn right it was the right thing to do. DEFEND YOURSELF. Don't ALLOW yourself to be a victim and do what they say. How many people die taking that kind of advice. Kick, scream, yell obscenities, do whatever it takes but put THEM down. They will be surprised.
You know, I,m getting a little long of tooth myself. I could use a date that doubled as a bodyguard. Do you know if she is single?
Exactly and get some DNA under the fingernails while your at it just in case prep escapes
I half expected her last name to be Clampett.
Good for her!
I met an elderly lady in Dorchester (a part of Boston) about 20 years ago who, still rather agitated by the event, explained that she had driven an intruder from her bedroom the night before by hitting him over the head repeatedly with her cane. Her reason - "no gentleman enters a ladies bedroom without knocking first"
Nice.
Sadly the good old boy network that is the state legislature has declined to pass legislation to allow the carrying of concealed weapons in this state.
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