A Wisconsin father of two little girls is bursting with pride and relief after his eight-year-old daughter bravely kept her cool and saved her two-year-old sister from thieves who stole their car with them inside.
Adam Jorgenson stopped by the Kwik Trip in Oak Creek on Sunday to drive his SUV through a quick wash — something he frequently does with Charley, 8, and little Autumn, 2, happily in tow.
“I’ve probably had a car wash there 50 times if not more,” Jorgenson told WTMJ. “It’s usually an easy stop.”
But this time, it was anything but “easy.”
The air dryers failed to fully dry the vehicle, so Jorgeson parked the car and jumped out with the engine still running to grab a chamois to wipe it down — but not before he noticed a purple Buick Encore parked at a diesel fuel pump.
“I was like, what’s that Buick doing sitting at a diesel pump?” he explained. “They don’t need diesel.”
Inside the Buick were two people — one holding a phone, the other a broken iPod touch.
One of the passengers asked Jorgenson for directions.
“He said, ‘Hey, I’m not from around here,'” the father recalled. “Can I get directions?”
The next thing Jorgenson knew, his SUV was pealing out of the parking lot with Charley and Autumn in the backseat.
“I heard the screeching of our tires and I turned around and saw the RX5 going very fast out of the parking lot, heading onto 27th Street,” he said. “I quickly turned back around to the guys who had asked me for directions and I screamed at them saying, there are kids in the car you idiots.”
“I was scared,” Charley told WTMJ. “I was like, what’s happening?”
The little girl assessed the situation and weighed her options.
“He asked me, where are the keys?” Charley said. “I was like, that’s a good thing that my dad has the keys. So I told him, my dad has the keys. Then, he told me to get out and I was like, what should I do? Should I run and be a scaredy cat or should I save my sister too? So I said, what about Autumn?”
The driver, Charley said, yelled to his two cousins in another car that he had kids in the backseat.
“That guy was trying to steal our car, I should do something,” Charley said. “I should try to kick him or defend myself and Autumn. But then, I was like, I should stay in my seat and do nothing. Stay here, do the questions, but when I realized that dad had the key, I was like, he can’t do anything without the key.”
The thief ultimately ditched the car — and the kids — about a mile up the road at Batteries Plus Bulbs.
In the front of the car, Charley noticed, was her father’s cell phone.
She quickly grabbed it, called her mom, and left a chilling, tearful voicemail: “Mom, I need you. We lost dad.”
“Where go Da Da?” baby Autumn could be heard asking in the background.
“I don’t know,” Charley answers.
CLOSE CALL: Adam Jorgenson vehicle was stolen with his 8-year-old daughter Charley and 2-year-old daughter Autumn still inside after the trio went to Kwik Trip for a car wash. pic.twitter.com/CtLuhN3vul
— Apex World News (@apexworldnews) February 7, 2024
Back at the Kwik Trip, Jorgenson had 911 dispatchers on one phone and his wife on another. The mom was tracking her daughters using her husband’s iPhone, which came to a stop at Batteries Plus Bulbs. The information was relayed from the mother to Jorgenson to the dispatchers, and police soon reached the SUV.
“Alright, Adam,” the dispatcher told the frantic father. “The officers are out with the SUV and the two kids are fine.”
“Are you serious?” Jorgenson asked. “Oh my god.”
“They are over by Batteries Plus,” the dispatcher said. “An officer is going to come over and meet you at Kwik Trip, ok?”
“Alright, but you guys have my kids?” Jorgenson asked.
“We do, yes,” the dispatcher confirmed.
“Oh my god,” the grateful father exclaimed. “Thank you.”
“I ran as fast as I could out of the back of that cop car to hug them,” Jorgenson told WTMJ.
He hopes his harrowing story will serve as a warning to other parents.
“It’s pretty darn simple,” Jorgenson said. “In the winter, you come outside with your groceries and you have your two little kids. You want to put them in the warm car and go take your cart back to the corral.”
“That’s not the right order anymore,” he cautioned. “Your kids might need to be cold for a few more minutes outside with you before you start your car and put them in it. It took two seconds for me to respond to somebody and then to sneak in.”
As for Charley, Jorgenson couldn’t be prouder of his quick-thinking little girl.
“It makes me really proud that we’re raising our daughter to be sufficient on her own, to think about not just herself and others and then, how can I best get out of this situation?” Jorgenson said. “How can I best resolve it? What should I do? Should I sit back or should I take action?”
On Facebook, the Oak Creek Police Department announced that three male suspects — aged 21, 20, and 17 — have been arrested in connection with the crime.
“OCPD detectives will seek felony charges early this week,” the police stated.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Oak Creek Police at 414-766-7627.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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