When I was in my early 20s I was mugged at the front door of my parent's house and kicked in the face 4 times ... for my handbag. Yes, I should have just let go of it, but I'm ~~a fighter~~ not that bright. So what did I do? At first, when I became aware of someone behind me and I turned around I was extremely scared at the very tall man towering over me. He was extremely intimidating and our hands seemed to be occupying the space on the carry handle of my handbag which was actually a CD walkman bag.
The attack happened so fast but everything slowed down for me. He kicked me through the open front door and while I almost fell to the ground, he pulled hard on the bag handle catapulting me forward and back towards him. I think that he was quite surprised that I didn't let go and this was repeated 3 times before I simply couldn't hold on anymore. By this point I was pissed, sore and screaming at him. I was starting to go on the offensive. I tried to grab at my keys which were still engaged in the lock mechanism of the door - a potential weapon and a panic button for the alarm, but he pulled me away from them. I then tried to reach the assegai positioned next to the door, but it was too far from me.
By the time my grip on the bag failed, my parent's bull terrier had roused from sleep due to the screaming and was trying to find his bearings. As soon as he caught sight of the assailant he was after him, but it was too late and the asshole was already jumping over the wall. If he had got hold of him, I'm pretty sure that guy would have bled out from what Texas would have done to him.
While this story is unpleasant to read, I was fortunate to not sustain any serious injuries. Had the guy had a knife, I am 100% certain that I would have been stabbed multiple times instead of kicked multiple times. I am grateful it was the latter to be frank. I still don't know how he didn't break my nose, but he gave me a set of black eyes, a split lip and some serious bruising down my side.
After this happened, I had a few weeks of severe hypervigilence where I was convinced that there was someone behind me when there wasn't - a natural (mild) case of ptsd after a violent encounter. Driving was difficult because my car had a back seat. A few weeks after this happened, I went to the World of Birds and my (new) handbag got pecked by a really angry Crimson Ibis. While looking up at the other birds, I wasn't aware of the trash turkey next to me I had a bit of a meltdown when I got triggered.
Eventually I found an even keel again - I realised how livid I was that it had happened. I replayed it over and over in my head. How had I not seen him, heard him, been aware? Was he hiding somewhere waiting to ambush me? Nothing provided any good answers and I found myself becoming more and more frustrated with the fact that I had been so unaware - I had let my guard down because I was at a familiar "safe space".
I doubled down on my efforts and enrolled for a self defence course with my Ninjitsu class for disarming someone with a firearm. I found out about how to equip myself and my staff with pepperspray especially those that chose not to carry a firearm. I enrolled my staff in a self defence course and pepperspray course both of which were held by the metro law enforcement unit. Unfortunately I didn't know at the time what their training methods consist of.
We assembled in a hall and found our seats. The instructor started an open discussion with everyone on various topics, many of which I cannot remember now. He was breaking the ice and wanted to guage the accuity of his class.
At the time I was a stand in manager for someone on maternity leave and I had only been in the position for about two months. I can categorically state that the staff at that reserve didn't like me one bit. They were used to doing very little work and getting paid very well for it - so when I came along they weren't happy. I'm not a bark orders and watch kind of manager. I went out in the field with them and worked alongside them whether they liked it or not. I'm leaning more towards not.
They didn't know what they were in for and neither did I until the course instructor told us that in about 20 minutes we were all going to be taken to the swimming pool and pepper sprayed so that we could experience what a perpetrator would experience and we would know the efficacy of the product. Now my colleagues were really pissed with me. I decided that it would only be fair to let anyone that didn't want to participate sit it out on the sidelines and I would not force anyone to do it. This was strategic because they immediately assumed that I had said this so that I had an out for myself. They were wrong because I was the first one to volunteer.
We had been told that the only rule for this training was:
1) DO NOT FORGET TO BREATHE!
Our instructor said it again and again. As I was the first up, I was close to him and I asked him if he was serious. He quietly told me that they had to resuscitate one of the trainees a few weeks prior because they had fallen unconscious after holding their breath for too long and then had started drowning.
I swallowed rather hard at that point because I don't do well having my head submerged in water. How do you earn your colleague's respect? You lead them. Sometimes that means lifting heavy shit before anyone else does.
I smiled at him and he asked me if I was ready..."as ready as I'm going to be - hit it". I nodded and closed my eyes. It wasn't pepper spray, it was pepper foam and he sprayed it from my one temple all the way across my eyelids to my other temple in one smooth motion, then his assistant led me to the swimming pool edge and helped me to the water as I descended into the burning inferno of what I can only describe as hell.
Everything stopped. Time stopped. My brain stopped. My breathing stopped. Everything became pain. It felt like death might be the easier way out. Since then I have experienced unmedicated childbirth twice and had my nipples pierced and they're all up there on the highest level of pain. There was nothing I could do except try and wash the capsicum off my face. It would have been better with milk, but it would have cost the municipality a pretty penny to fill a swimming pool with milk and a week later would have stank to high heaven, so water was all we had.
It was only much later when I pulled the various pieces of my split psyche together and collected myself that I saw that only one of my staff members had sat out of the training and he claimed it was because he couldn't swim and was scared he would drown, I think he was scared. I was exceptionally proud of my troopers and I think that they were all proud of themselves too. It was a bit of a trial by fire in your eyesockets team building type thing. Maybe we had become trauma bonded lol.
I still have that brand of pepperspray and it was what was provided to the law enforcement units and Metro Police, but it wasn't available to the public at that stage. I have a sneaky suspicion that it's probably lost some of its efficacy by now, but I'm not that keen on self inflicted masochism to find out. Once is enough thanks. I had chosen to not draw and carry an enforcement firearm due to the risk of being assaulted for it so I needed some form of protection that I could be confident would immobilize the attacker and give me an opportunity to get away.
This stuff was the snizznizz.
While I would very much prefer to not be mugged again, these are realities of what happens daily in South Africa. It is worse in some areas than in others, but I do not consider any place "safe". That would really be quite naive of me.
Having a small child also makes one more susceptible to things like this and believing that people won't attack a single mom and kid is doing yourself and your kid a big disservice. I carry my pepperspray with me practically everywhere as well as two knives. I am hoping not to have to use them anytime soon but if I need to, I will. Perhaps it's time to get a new canister, this one is old!
Does anyone know the life expenctancy of pepperspray?
Who can recommend a good brand that will closely emmulate what I described above?
