We’ve all been in those situations where you suddenly say to yourself ‘something doesn’t feel right here’, but the majority of us ride it out and try to avoid the nagging voice at the back of our heads telling us to take action.
I always like to imagine that if I were put in a situation where someone looked like they needed help or assistance, like someone being verbally abused on a bus or hurt in the street, that I would step in. But although you play it out in your head how you’d jump in and speak up, I suppose you never know how you would really react until you’re there in the moment. I’m not the biggest lady on the block, so maybe I would second guess myself and walk the other way if they were large men to ensure that I didn’t hurt myself in the process. Though I like to think that I have bigger balls than that, metaphorically speaking.
One guy who definitely had the balls was Malyk Bonnet from Montreal, Canada. He listened to his gut feeling to step in and help, and thank goodness he did because his actions saved a woman’s life.
On August the 1st this 17-year-old was waiting for a bus after finishing work at a nearby restaurant. It was here that he saw two people arguing, a man and a woman.
A warning light came on in Bonnet’s head, he told CBC News that this was because “he wasn’t really gentle with her, and I started watching, because I thought he would hit her, so I approached them a little bit.”
Instead of deflecting the red flag, this young lad decided that he wasn’t going to ignore the uneasy way he felt about the situation, so he took action in a brilliantly clever way. Bonnet decided to befriend the couple and when they asked if he could lend them some money to cover their bus fair to a nearby city, Lavel, 25 miles away, he obliged. Saying that he was travelling there as well, this was in fact not the case.
The quick-thinking Canadian said that he decided to be friendly with the man so that he “played my game”, that way he would “trust me” because he wanted “to keep them in a public place where he wouldn’t hurt her.”
His plan worked and the trio travelled all the way to Lavel. On arrival Bonnet suggested they grab some food at a local restaurant, which he paid for himself. Once he spotted the opportunity Bonnet took a trip to the restroom where he called the police and reported that he believed someone had been kidnapped.
Officers listened to the call and quickly arrived at the scene. Unbeknown to this hero, the man was known to the police, he was the former boyfriend of the woman and she had in fact been abducted by him earlier that day. Local law enforcers were already searching for the victim when Bonnet made the call. The perpetrator had previously spent time behind bars for attacking the 29-year-old and had sent death threats. Thank goodness this teen was there to save the day and prevent the worst from happening.
When asked about his actions Bonnet told CBC News that the police “were treating me like a hero.” Although he doesn’t want to be a hero, this selfless individual still thinks “it’s really awesome, I saved a life,” and we think so too. Check out his interview following the event below.
A staggering 1 in 4 women will suffer domestic abuse at some point in their lifetime in both the UK and America. Although this story has a happy ending it also reminds us that this is’t always the case. There isn’t always an alert and noble Bonnet there to come to their rescue before it’s too late.