A video showing the heart-stopping moment a mum jumped onto the hood of her own vehicle during a car-jacking to try and protect her two children has been released.
New Mexico mum Melody Maldonado, 33, parked her car in front of a store and nipped inside the shop, leaving her six-year-old daughter and 11-month-old son inside the vehicle.
When she returned to the car, she was ‘pushed’ by another woman who then jumped into the vehicle and drove away with the children inside, but not before Maldonado jumped onto the bonnet and clung on for dear life. Watch the footage below:
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Speaking to MailOnline, Maldonado explained that during the 2018 incident alleged car thief Regina Castillo, 29, was ‘swerving’ to try and fling the desperate mum off the vehicle and refused to stop the car, despite Maldonado yelling that her kids were inside.
Maldonado explained: “She definitely heard me. I yelled for her to stop and that my kids were in the car.
“She kept driving. We went a good distance…she was swerving so that I would fall off.”
Maldonado eventually fell off the car and ran back inside the convenience store to tell a clerk to phone the police, not realising in the heat of the moment that she’d broken her foot.
“I didn’t care what happened to the car. I just wanted my kids back,” the doting mum shared.
The Hobbs Police Department located the car and identified the suspect as Castillo.
Not only had Castillo dumped Maldonado’s young daughter Ma’Rey at an intersection, but the alleged carjacker also abandoned Maldonado’s white Hyundai - with 11-month-old Mikah inside - and tried to run from law enforcement.
She was eventually found hiding being a pickup truck and subsequently arrested.
Maldonado said she thinks Ma’Rey - who was left shaken up by the ordeal - was left at an intersection because the carjacker learned she had a phone on her and didn’t want to risk being followed by cops.
Thankfully, some ‘good samaritans’ looked after Ma’Rey and contacted the police to let them know she’d been found.
Both of Maldonado’s kids were treated by EMS before being reunited with their mum. Maldonado was treated for her broken foot and ‘a lot of road rash’.
According to MailOnline, it was discovered after Castillo’s arrest that she also had three active arrest warrants on charges including shoplifting, concealing identity and failure to appear for traffic violations.
LADbible has approached the Hobbs Police Department for comment.
Aisha Nozari