DAYTONA BEACH -- The champagne-colored van was the last anniversary present Eliud Haliday got from her late husband, so she wasn't going to let it go easily.
The 70-year-old Daytona Beach woman got tough with a carjacker Tuesday, police said; so tough the robber bailed out.
"I wasn't going to let them take my van, my pocketbook and my paycheck," Haliday said from the emergency room of Halifax Health Medical Center, where she was taken as a precaution. "It's against nature. You can't let them take over your life."
Haliday just arrived at the Beville Road Walmart shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday to pick up her son, Allan, who is temporarily disabled because of a motorcycle accident.
"She had just put a couple of bags of groceries in the van when it takes off racing down the parking lot and I called 9-1-1," he said.
Haliday had jumped into the van and put her assailant in a chokehold. A Brazilian native, she studied martial arts -- judo, jujitsu and capoeira -- in her youth.
"He kept telling me that he was going to kill me, and that he had a gun in his pants," Haliday said from her hospital bed, hair styled and nails manicured. "I told him, 'You can't reach it. Your pants are at your ankles.' "
Nonetheless, her heart pounded as the suspect -- described as a young black man wearing a black short-sleeve shirt and a camouflage hat -- hit a parked car, swerved several times and hit a fence.
"I think he was trying to get me to fall out of the sliding door," Haliday said. "He swerved one time and the door slammed shut and then he was mine."
His accomplices, four of them, followed in another van as Haliday's sped east on Beville Road.
"His friends were screaming, 'Bail out, bail out,' " she said. "I kept asking him if he wanted to stop all this nonsense and get out, but he kept going."
Haliday, a retired nurse who described herself as kind and gentle at all other times, said it was necessary to defend herself so she did what she had to do.
"I can't believe how hard it is to break somebody's neck," she said. "I just kept choking him until he couldn't talk. I thought he'd at least faint."
By the time the suspect made it to Ridgewood and Rutledge avenues in South Daytona, he'd had enough. He leaped out and was picked up by his cohorts.
"What he did is wrong, wrong, wrong," she said. "I've always believed in protecting children and the elderly, and I guess I'm now, well ..."
Her daughter, Maisa Alderman, said her mother taught her self-defense as a child, but she couldn't help but be concerned when her mother called from Halifax to tell her she had been carjacked.
"By the time I saw her, I was laughing," Alderman said. "When she started telling me about how his eyes were poking out and how hard it is to break somebody's neck, I knew she was fine."
Police Chief Mike Chitwood is thankful Haliday will be OK.
"You've got these little thugs just looking for an opportunity," he said. "They thought they found it, but they were wrong."
Police are still looking for the suspect and his accomplices. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Dale Detter at 386-671-5218.
While both her son and Chitwood referred to her assailant as looking quite young, Haliday hopes he's not.
"I hope he's at least 21 so he had a chance to enjoy his life some, before he goes to jail," she said. "You just can't do this kind of thing to people. Not on my watch anyway."
Wonder if they're operating in conjunction with those Pirate Simulator guys?
Guess you'll have to do it . 
:
. Can't remember now which one that was , it's been a while . 
I miss the days when you could actually take something back that didn't work and get a cash refund. 
