Driver meets her hero after kidnapping ordeal
Marteine Robin enjoyed meeting Jade Lynn, who stood up to a man who had stabbed her on Thursday. Jo MckenzieMclean reports.
AWOMAN who was kidnapped and stabbed has thanked her hero at an emotional reunion. Marteine Robin, 36, and Jade Lynn, 22, hugged yesterday as they met for the first time since Thursday’s ordeal. ‘‘It must have been really scary for you,’’ Mr Lynn told Ms Robin as he held his 21-month-old daughter, Freya, at his Spreydon home.
‘‘I have been singing your praises. You are a f...... hero,’’ Ms Robin said.
Mr Lynn confronted a 27-year-old knife-wielding man with a crowbar to stop him stabbing more people at the end of a 90-minute drama in Hoon Hay.
The man stabbed Ms Robin in the shoulder after kidnapping her in her delivery truck and stabbed a Christchurch City Council worker several times in the worker’s car.
After Mr Lynn and the man fought, police arrived and the man was pepper-sprayed, Tasered and shot twice.
‘‘There were quite a few times I didn’t think I was going to get out. Unless I jumped out, I don’t think I would have got out breathing,’’ Ms Robin said of her ordeal, which began as she drove to Redwood School in northern Christchurch to deliver pies.
The attack had topped off a traumatic year, she said.
‘‘Last year I was made redundant, and then I found out I had cervical cancer and went through chemotherapy and radiation,’’ she said. ‘‘I came out of that side smiling, then I was getting back to normal and my stepdad died unexpectedly. Then this.’’
Ms Robin said she first saw her attacker walking down the road as she drove toward Redwood School.
‘‘I thought he was hitchhiking,’’ she said. ‘‘Then he threw a stick at my truck.
‘‘I was parked near the school and I was going to get out and get the pies out of the back and I saw him in the rear-vision mirror.
‘‘Then the door flung open and he had a knife in his hand and he was pointing it at me, telling me to drive or he would stab me.
‘‘He said he had two knives. I said, ‘Get the f . . . out of my truck’.’’
Ms Robin drove towards the city, flashing her lights to get people’s attention.
‘‘I asked him why he was doing it and he didn’t answer me. He said he had issues,’’ she said.
‘‘I said we all have issues, and to deal with it. I said I have a daughter and I want to go home.
‘‘He said he had a family, but he didn’t care if I lived or if he lived. He didn’t care I was a female.
‘‘I was very afraid, but my survival instinct is quite strong. I didn’t go into panic mode.’’
At one point, after hearing fire sirens, the man told Ms Robin not to stop if the police arrived, she said.
‘‘I said, ‘I will stop and hopefully they will shoot your arse’. He told me to shut up and not to swear.’’
About halfway through the ordeal, Ms Robin asked the man where to go after reaching an intersection. When he did not reply, she ‘‘made a choice, then felt a bang in her shoulder’’.
‘‘My whole arm went dead. I was probably driving for 20 minutes with a dead arm,’’ she said.
‘‘I thought he had punched me
in the shoulder and he had just hit a nerve. I asked what he had done to my arm. I didn’t realise he had stabbed me until I felt blood dripping down my shoulder.
‘‘I gritted my teeth. I knew after I felt blood the only way I would be getting out in one piece was if I jumped.’’
Ms Robin took her chance to escape, jumping from the vehicle after the man had told her to pull over near the intersection of Hoon Hay and Lincoln roads.
‘‘The first thing I did was turn the engine off,’’ she said. ‘‘He goes: ‘Now be very quiet. Don’t make a sound. Don’t speak.’ He said it very quietly.
‘‘It was the first time he used a quiet voice through the whole thing. He wrapped his knife up in my polar fleece and sort of patted it.’’
Ms Robin then made a run for it, banging on bonnets and car windows screaming for help.
‘‘I saw him run and jump into the council worker’s car,’’ she said.
‘‘He was holding the knife and threatening him the same way he did with me. I thought, ‘that poor bastard’.
‘‘I have got out of my truck and I have made him get into someone else’s vehicle. I thought, ‘God, it’s my fault for getting out of my truck’. I sat on the pavement and cried and basically broke down.
‘‘Then I saw the silver car was on the pavement and the offender walking around with knives in his hand. I was trying to work out the best place I could hide, and then I saw Jade with a big metal bar keeping him away from people.’’
Mr Lynn said that in hindsight he had probably been stupid taking on a man with two knives.
‘‘I just wanted to help because I have young kids and there were kids there . . .’’ he said. ‘‘That’s just not nice to see. That’s when I got a bit aggressive. I did try and offer him a cigarette and said, ‘Let’s talk’, but that wasn’t going too well. I didn’t want to see anyone else hurt and I saw him getting close and I didn’t want him getting into any more cars.’’
Mr Lynn said he was fit, younger, and had experience in kickboxing, so was in a position to take the man on.
‘‘But it was a scary experience. It’s nothing I have ever seen before in my life. I had a bit of a cry. I think shock kicked in and I just lost it. I saw you [Ms Robin] and the other guy and all the blood. It was horrible, especially for other witnesses who saw it.’’
Mr Lynn works for Armitage Construction as a foreman.
He said he used to ‘‘get into a bit of trouble’’ before he met his fiancee, Stephanie Gilbert. They have two children, aged 21 months and 4 months.
‘‘I changed my life when I had kids and I’ve got a fulltime job now. It’s my first long-term relationship and she keeps me in line,’’ he said.
Mr Lynn and Ms Robin had been in shock since the ordeal, trying to come to terms with the attack.
Mr Lynn said he could empathise with Ms Robin’s ordeal. A year-and-ahalf ago, he was stabbed three times with a screwdriver after being attacked from behind as he waited for a taxi in the central city. No-one has been charged.
He said he did not expect to be called a hero. ‘‘I think if you were in the same situation you would have done the same thing.’’