A Melbourne man has revealed why a ‘really bad’ gut feeling stopped him from helping a woman ‘screaming in pain’ on the ground beside her car.
Aaron had been driving with his girlfriend late at night when he came across the bizarre scene on Filbert Street in Caulfield South, in the city’s south-east.
‘As I turned into the street, I saw a vehicle up ahead with no lights on, so I high beamed them twice,’ he explained in a video posted to social media.
The car, which Aaron claimed had been ‘strategically’ parked in the bend of the quiet suburban road, remained suspiciously dark.
‘I approached the vehicle, and that’s when I noticed the driver’s side door was completely wide open,’ he continued.
‘My girlfriend and I both noticed there was a female body on the floor outside the vehicle, and we were both really scared.
‘She was holding her leg, screaming as if she was dying. She was telling me to come outside, screaming, please help me, come outside, please I’m dying.’
Aaron had been driving to pick up food with his girlfriend when he came across the bizarre scene on a suburban street in Caulfield South, in Melbourne’s south-east
Aaron told his girlfriend to stay in the car and unclipped his seatbelt in preparation to help the woman. However, a ‘really bad’ gut feeling stopped him in his tracks.
‘I was this close to opening the door. I grabbed the handle,’ he said.
‘I don’t know why I didn’t open the door, I just drove off. I had this gut feeling. I couldn’t tell you what is was.
‘My girlfriend was in the car and couldn’t understand why I drove off and didn’t help.’
Aaron told his girlfriend ‘it’s not real’ and asked her to dial triple zero, with Victoria Police arriving on the scene in just minutes.
Officers asked the couple to stay in their car while they searched the nearby streets, however the woman and the car were nowhere to be found.
They told Aaron he had done the right thing by calling police.
‘They told me a situation like this happened three weeks ago where a female pretended to be injured and an innocent person would go outside, try to help, and get carjacked, if not injured,’ he said.
Officers said a man who was ambushed less than a month ago was hit in the back of the head with a brick and ‘knocked out cold’.
After turning onto Filbert Street, Aaron and his girlfriend spotted a woman beside a dark car ‘screaming that she was dying’ and holding her leg
Aaron said he was ‘really lucky’ that he had decided not to help the woman and urged other drivers to remain aware of similar set-ups.
‘It’s f***ing scary and it does happen,’ he said. ‘Never get out of your car, always stay in your car and dial triple zero.’
In a bizarre twist, police later said they had found woman who had been genuinely injured and needing assistance.
‘The community member called 000 and left the scene,’ a police statement read.
‘Officers attended and located the woman at her nearby address.
‘She was seeking assistance after her car began rolling when she got out of her vehicle, causing her to injure her leg.’
Despite Aaron misinterpreting the situation, many Aussies applauded him for listening to his gut feeling, with several sharing their own horror stories.
‘Something like this happened to a dear friend back in 2002,’ one person wrote.
‘It was a woman with a crying baby, he doesn’t remember anything after jumping out of the car and was found by the garbage truck in the middle of the street unconscious head bleeding. Lost his car and got a cracked skull.’
Another said similar set-ups had been happening in Sydney ‘for years’.
‘Never get out or unlock doors for anyone,’ the user advised.
