Young Hero 'Beyond Excited' During Frantic Car Chase to Save Kidnap Victim
A Texas teenager who had helped save a woman who had allegedly been kidnapped after he and a friend saw her mouth the words "Help me" from the back of a moving vehicle, said he was "beyond excited" during the half-hour it took police to track down the vehicle.
Jamal Harris, 17, and Aaron Arias, 19, were on their way to pick up their friend from work when they saw an "attractive" woman in the backseat of another car. Trying to get a closer look at her, their curiosity turned to shock when she signaled them for help.
"We finally made eye contact, and I could see the serious expression on her face, and I could read her lips and she was saying 'Help me,'" Harris told "Good Morning America."
Harris and Arias called the police while the woman frantically hit the back of the windshield and proceeded to tail the vehicle for half an hour as authorities swung into action. When the driver realized he was being followed, he tried to lose them, Arias told "GMA."
"They moved around a lot and sometimes they'd go really, really fast to where we could barely see them and then we'd catch up, and they'd go super slow," Arias said.
Tailing the car on highway 175 for miles, Harris and Arias stayed on the phone with the 911 operator as police raced to find them.
"I was beyond excited, because I knew someone was going to stop them and the police would come and they were going to get them. And I just wanted to see it through," Harris said.
Officers soon arrived and pulled over the vehicle in which they found the woman.
Police arrested Charles Atkins Lewis, 37, and he has been charged him with aggravated kidnapping. He remains in jail on $50,000 bond. His lawyer said that Lewis was innocent until proved guilty.
The alleged victim was examined by paramedics and released.