WWII vet: No one came to my rescue

Associated Press

DETROIT

A World War II veteran said nobody helped him in the minutes after he was attacked and carjacked during daylight at a busy Detroit gas station and he had to crawl across a concrete parking lot to get help.

A roughly four-minute surveillance video shows 86-year-old Aaron Brantley struggling to get from the fuel pump to the gas station’s door as people walked and drove by him Wednesday morning.

The video was first obtained by the Detroit Free Press.

Brantley told The Associated Press that several people passed by him as he crawled, unable to walk because his leg was broken in the attack. The carjacker knocked Brantley down, took his keys and drove off in his car about 10:40 a.m.

“I was trying to go in ... and see if somebody could call the police and an ambulance because I couldn’t stand. I had to crawl — I tried two or three times to get up,” Brantley said Saturday. He said he was on way home from Bible study when he stopped to put gas in his 2010 Chrysler 200, which he recently bought to replace another car that had been stolen.

“People were passing me just like I wasn’t there. ... I was crawling and they just walk by me like I’m not there,” he said.

Brantley said as he approached the building, he asked a woman to open the door for him. He said at first it appeared she wasn’t going to, but she did and then kept walking. He found it distressing that nobody helped him.

Station manager Haissam Jaber said he didn’t see the attack but called 911 after a customer alerted him.

As Brantley sat on rock salt, waiting for an ambulance to come, he offered money to a stranger to drive him to his house a few blocks away.

The customer refused the money and drove Brantley home, where an ambulance took him to the hospital.

Detroit Police spokeswoman Sgt. Eren Stephens said Saturday there have been no arrests in the case.