Mother, Baby Dive From Car Amid Carjacking
BALTIMORE (WJZ)— A mom jumps out of a moving car with her baby. She says it was a do-or-die decision after a carjacker threatened her life and that of her baby boy. On Thursday, her actions let her live to tell about it.
Mike Hellgren has the mother's miraculous story.
Elysya made that split second decision to save her and her baby. The mom says she is not a hero. She was just acting on her instincts.
Surveillance video shows the Lexus shortly after it was carjacked at a Citgo on Edmondson Avenue in West Baltimore. With a mom and baby inside, it sideswiped an SUV.
Police say Terron Alvin White was behind the wheel and took them on a dangerous, wild ride. He headed down I-95 and toward the Capital Beltway— at triple-digit speeds— as the mother clutched her child.
She called it the 40-mile ride from hell.
"He was doing like 110 at a point, so I'm just thinking if he's doing 110 and he hits anybody we're gonna flip or something," Elysya said.
As the car slowed, she sensed her chance, cradling her 20-month-old child. She jumped from the moving car onto the Beltway.
"When I jumped out, I hit my head and then I rolled and then I guess I stood up," Elysya said. "I asked him to pull over thousands of times."
Both are miraculously OK.
The mom-- Elysya --who didn't want to give her last name, says White cursed at and threatened her and her baby boy, named Juju.
"He's like 'I like you. I love you.' Then he's like, 'Psyche b****. I don't like anybody. I'm gonna kill all of us,'" Elysya recalled.
White faces kidnapping and assault charges.
"I really didn't want to jump but I didn't know what else to do," Elysya said. "So I acted like I was putting my seatbelt on with this hand and I pushed the door open while he was looking through the rearview mirror. And I kicked this leg first and I jumped out."
The Lexus sideswiped a state trooper on the wild ride.
"All of the back-up troopers did a phenomenal job because this could have ended up so much more...with more injuries," said Elena Russo, Maryland State Police
"When I seen the northern Virginia sign, I said 'Oh my gosh. He's going to take me to Virginia, rape me and kill me in front of my son or something,'" Elysya said. "I'm still scared. It's a nightmare."
White did have a prior criminal record. In 2009, he had a marijuana possession conviction and he paid a fine for obsessive speeding this year.
A state trooper was also hurt in the incident. He was checked out at a hospital and will be OK.
