A husband’s impressive driving skills helped save a life when a family took a recalibrated route and ended up on a road where a violent robbery was taking place.
Johannesburg, South Africa (17 December 2025) – The story starts with traffic.
A road in Kensington was backed up with it. That’s when Jude, her husband Wikus, and their 16-month-old baby took an alternative route, saving some time in the car.
Little did they know, they were headed straight towards a violent crime.
“This alternate route led us to this traumatic incident on Aster Rd in Linksfield. My husband saw a struggle happening on the side of the road and immediately exclaimed ‘Omg, I think it’s a robbery!’”
Rather than speed off or turn a blind eye, Wikus wanted to help. He sped up and, at the scene, identified a male attacker, punching and wrestling a woman.
“I opened my window and screamed at him to stop, at which point the situation greatly escalated, and within a second, he pulled out a very large knife and proceeded to start stabbing her multiple times,” shared Wikus.
That’s how quickly these situations can escalate.
Travelling together as a family, Wikus knew he couldn’t risk it by climbing out to intervene. He’d be putting his wife and child at risk, too.
So he did the most sensible thing.
“Because we weren’t armed and had our baby with us, he quickly decided to use our car as a means to get in-between the attacker and victim and to push the attacker away from her so that she could escape.” says Jude.
“I had no firearm on me, so my only option was to use the vehicle as a tool to create an escape barrier for her to get around, at which point I can take things further if need be.” recounts Wikus.
Wikus pulled off impeccable driving skills under pressure. From behind the wheel, he managed to separate the attacker and reversed into him so that the victim had a moment to escape to safety.
“Thankfully, once I wedged the rear left corner between them, I had an opportunity to swing the car around and block him off without hitting her. The victim ran up the road to the white car that potentially helped her further as I followed the suspect, and my wife manage to get the security to the correct location so that we could pin him against a wall for arrest.”
As the situation unfolded, Jude called a local security company to meet them where the attacker was.
“We followed the attacker until ADT showed up (about 6min later, amazing!) and cornered him and arrested him.” shares Jude.
Thanks to Wikus, a woman’s life has been saved.
“We have since made contact with the lady and she is very sore, bruised, and traumatised, but very grateful to be alive.” Jude shared. “Wikus and I are eternally grateful that we were divinely led to this horrible scenario so that we could save her life, and also catch the violent criminal and have him arrested!”
The story doesn’t even end there.
“A dear client of mine (being a professional musician, I have performed for his birthdays) saw my instagram story explaining what had happened, and the next morning, sent me a video he had seen on social media that he likened to my experience, not knowing it was my husband and I in that exact video saving the lady!” shares with us.
The life-saving was all caught in action.
“As citizens of South Africa, we will not stand for violence, especially gender-based violence,” the family shared, recounting the scenario. “We urge the rest our society to be brave and to help your fellow human being where you can, and of course to assess the scenario before acting. Here’s to another life saved, a life that did not become part of a statistic!”
Stepping in doesn’t mean acting recklessly. It means being aware and responsible, using judgment, and knowing when to call for help.
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