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Carjack
Victim's Saga A Brutal Lesson For All |
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"One
millimeter more and she would have been dead."
—Dr. Keith Wahl, Surgeon at Scripps Memorial Hospital CUT AND BRUISED FROM HEAD TO TOE with plates and screws holding her face together, Julie Weaver limped out of the hospital the other day, lucky to be alive. Doctors worked 18 hours to reconstruct her face and treat the other wounds she suffered two weeks ago when she tried to stop a man from stealing her pickup truck. "That was stupid. I should have called the police," Weaver, 33, mumbled from a hospital waiting room, her jaw wired shut. Weaver suffered what doctors call the worst facial injury possible, a facial separation from the skull. Her eye sockets, jaw and cheek bones were shattered. Her right ear was nearly sheared off and all the skin on her left forearm was scraped off. Doctors
worked 18 hours to reconstruct her face . . .
In addition, she suffered a punctured lung, a dislocated shoulder, a broken rib and a deep gash from the groin to the hip that just missed cutting an artery on her leg. Police said the incident could be considered a carjacking because the thief used force to try to take the car from its owner. More than 200 carjackings have been reported in San Diego this year. In most of those cases, however, the thieves have stopped drivers in their cars and ordered tham to give up the vehicles. In Weaver's case, she tried to take her car back moments after it was stolen. Her nightmare began one day before dawn when she was awakened in her Mira Mesa home by the sound of a car being started. When she looked out her second story bedroom window, she saw it was hers and called out to her husband. "I said, 'John, someone is taking off with the car,' and ran down the stairs. I don't know why I didn't call the police," Weaver said, still upset about her costly decision. Weaver caught up to her truck, which was stopped at a nearby intersection. When she opened the driver's door, she confronted a man hunched over the passenger side, riffling through the glove compartment. What followed, she said, "felt like forever." She tried pulling the key out of the ignition but the thief floored the accelerator, sending the truck careering into a brick wall. Weaver can't remember exactly how she was injured but recalls feeling helpless: "All I know is that I couldn't get out of the truck and I did not want to be there with this guy."
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The trauma surgeons who operated on Weaver believe she smashed her face against the windshield and got tossed out of the vehicle when it crashed. A sharp object, possibly sheet metal under the truck, sliced her body, they speculated. Witnesses told police they saw a man running from the wreckage, holding his shoulder as if in pain. Weaver's husband, who went driving around looking for her, found her lying barely conscious in a pool of blood on the sidewalk. One surgeon said the marathon operation that followed was like trying to fix a broken eggshell. "the
marathon operation that followed was like trying to fix a broken eggshell."
—Scripps Memorial Hospital surgeon "She looked terrible when she came in," said Dr. Keith Wahl, one of several surgeons at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla who operated on Weaver. Surgeons worried most about the deep gash near her leg. "One millimeter more and she would have been dead," said Wahl. Weaver is still shaken by her near death experience but is trying put it behind her. She left the hospital Wednesday and returned to her home, where she lives with her husband and two children. She is looking forward to returning to work, helping her husband run a hobby store. She wants the man who caused her severe injuries brought to justice. "She
looked terrible when she came in,"
—Dr. Keith Wahl, Surgeon at Scripps Memorial Hospital "I don't want to kill him or anything like that but I wouldn't mind having this guy pay for this," said Weaver, pointing to her wounds. "I looked pretty great before." Police advise motorists not to resist if they are confronted by someone demanding their car. "Out advice is give them what they want because chances are good that you'll get your car back. We recover more than half of the cars taken," said San Diego police spokesman Bill Robinson. Earlier this month, an escaped convict in downtown San Diego shot to death a motorist who wouldn't yield his car. In another violent episode, a passenger in a car stabbed to death a man who was trying to steal it. For her part, Weaver said she won't dwell on what's happened to her. "I still made it through. I should feel lucky." •
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