Terrified Woman Mouths 'Help Me' to Employee While in McDonald's Drive-Thru
A desperate woman’s plea to McDonald’s employees may have helped save her life on Christmas Eve.
The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office is attributing the successful rescue to employees’ quick actions.
Authorities said a woman entered a McDonald’s located in Lodi, California, on Tuesday and told an employee to call 911.
She also gave the employee the license plate number of the vehicle she was driving.
The woman then used the fast-food restaurant’s restroom, but when she returned to the counter and tried to order food, a man, later identified as 35-year-old convicted felon Eduardo Valenzuela, demanded she use the drive-thru instead.
While in the drive-thru, she again presented a desperate plea to an employee by mouthing “help me” as Valenzuela sat in the passenger seat.
Thankfully, employees took her first cry for help seriously.
“Just then, deputies arrived and spoke with employees inside the restaurant, they rushed them out the door telling them that the woman needing help was in the drive-thru line,” the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office wrote on Facebook.
Deputies arrived to the restaurant in time to pull the vehicle over.
Afterward, investigators learned that Valenzuela had been violent with the victim in the past and had threatened to kill her.
San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Deputy Andrea Lopez told KTXL that authorities also found a loaded revolver in the trunk of the car that had been stolen out of state.
Valenzuela is now in jail on suspicion of criminal threats, possession of stolen property and possession of a firearm as a felon, according to police.
Lopez said the employees’ quick actions were “key” to the successful rescue.
McDonald’s spokeswoman Regina Camera told KTXL employees had been trained to handle “crisis situations like that.”
“Our restaurant manager had our employees actually hold up the drive-thru line so that we were then able to stop that car from moving forward,” Camera said.
“I think it was one of those fight or flight kind of things. They just took over and they didn’t hesitate.”
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