Woman’s miraculous escape after using a simple TikTok signal as ‘ex-boyfriend threatened to kill her with a screwdriver’

POLICE say a woman escaped her ex-boyfriend, who allegedly threatened to kill her with a screwdriver, using a simple TikTok signal.

Witness Eric Streval described what happened in a supermarket on April 10 after the woman gestured for help.

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Police said the woman was visiting her brother in Tennessee on April 10 when her ex-boyfriend, Johnathon Smith, arrived.

She rode in his vehicle with Smith. But then the two got into a “physical altercation,” Hickman County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Mike Doddo said The Tennessee.

“The friend then asked to be let out. He said ‘no,'” Doddo said.

Smith, 31, “threatened to kill her by grabbing a screwdriver and telling her if he couldn’t have her, nobody could have her,” Doddo said.

It was at this point that Smith allegedly began driving recklessly before pulling into a Twice Daily gas station.

There the woman pointed to a gas station employee. She folded her thumb into her palm and closed her other four fingers over it like she had learned on TikTok.

The worker reportedly repeated the gesture before staff called 911.

Police said Smith went to the checkout and the cashier stalled while police were on their way to the scene.

But Smith, according to Doddo, was beginning to understand what had happened and returned to his vehicle with the woman.

As the two pulled away from the gas station, a Hickman County sheriff’s corporal followed them.

A chase then began, Doddo said, with vehicle speeds up to 90 miles per hour. After 10-15 minutes, Smith crashed his vehicle into a creek.

He was eventually caught on foot. The woman was unharmed, reports The Tennessean.

Eric Streeval was at Twice Daily when the woman walked in FOX56 reports. She is said to have shouted “help” to him.

Streeval, who is part of a motorcycle group that helps women in domestic violence situations, credits the woman with seeking help.

“If you see something, say something,” Streeval told FOX56.

“Domestic violence is a bad thing here in Tennessee. Victims are often too afraid to speak up.

“And I credit the young lady in this situation with having the greatest courage in the world to actually speak out because who knows what would have happened.”

The woman’s ex-boyfriend has been charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated domestic assault, authorities said, with other charges possible.

This isn’t the first time the TikTok gesture has helped a woman escape a domestic violence situation.

A Missing teenage girl kidnapped by a man flashed the signal at a passing driver last year.

Some internet detectives think so too The hand signal was used by Gabby Petito during their encounter with police officers in Moab, Utah.