Owen Burns, Alpena Township, Michigan boy hailed a hero after using slingshot to save sister, 8 years old from attempted kidnapping in back yard.
‘I was just lucky.’ A 13-year-old Michigan boy who used a slingshot to save his 8-year-old sister from attempted kidnapping has been hailed a hero, after admitting he was ‘freaking out’ and had simply reached for something that could stop the attack.
‘So I grab my slingshot and open the window and I grab two things — a marble and a gravel rock or something,’ Owen Burns told WWTV/WWUP-TV in Cadillac in northern Michigan.
Owen struck the 17-year-old assailant in the head and chest, allowing the young girl to get away.
‘I was just lucky’
‘I was just lucky. He’s just a big target because he’s not like one Pepsi can,’ Owen said.
The siblings were able to point in the direction of where the assailant fled, before the teen’s eventual arrest at a nearby gas station, MLive reported.
The attempted kidnapping occurred on May 10 in the family’s backyard in Alpena Township. Owen’s sister was outside looking for mushrooms.
‘I say, ‘OK, be careful.’ … And then, boom, something happens,’ the brother recalled.
Owen heard a scream while playing video games but figured his sister was just ‘messing around’ with friends. It was the second scream though that alarmed the girl’s brother.
‘So I looked out the window and saw her being abducted by a person and I’m like freaking out,’ Owen said.
‘I’m actually bad wit a slingshot’
That’s when he grabbed his slingshot. Police caught the suspect and said he had visible wounds. The teen has been charged with attempted kidnapping and other crimes.
State police 1st Lt. John Grimshaw said Owen’s actions were ‘extraordinary.’
He said the boy saved his sister’s life or at least prevented ‘something seriously bad happening to her.’
Owen said he had to act.
‘If I wasn’t out there and I didn’t hear her scream, then she was gone,’ the girl’s heroic elder brother said.
Adding, ‘I’m bad with a slingshot. I haven’t actually used a slingshot for a long time.’
