Amazing:Woman, 70, vs. carjacker; woman wins

Eliud Haliday's last anniversary gift from her late husband was a champagne-colored van.

And the 70-year-old Daytona Beach woman wasn't about to let a carjacker steal it.

Haliday arrived at a Daytona Beach Walmart shortly after 1 p.m. to pick up her son, Allan, who is temporarily disabled because of a motorcycle accident, reports the Daytona Beach News Journal.

"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 911," Allan said.

Eliud Haliday 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.' "

"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.

The carjacker finally gave up — he leaped out of the van and was picked up by his accomplices.

"I hope he's at least 21 so he had a chance to enjoy his life some, before he goes to jail," Haliday said. "You just can't do this kind of thing to people. Not on my watch, anyway."

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