PETALING JAYA: Popular Malaysian blogger Rebecca Saw found herself victim to an attempted snatch theft at Bukit Gasing on Thursday.
Saw shared her harrowing experience on Facebook where two men on a motorcycle attempted to snatch her iPhone when she was hiking alone at the popular Petaling Jaya forest reserve at 8am.
"I was a victim of opportunistic crime; alone, no witness, snatch-and-run," said Saw.
"We hear so many of these cases of snatch theft and like many others, I've thought 'it won't happened to me'.
"The truth is, it can happen to anyone," she said.
Saw said that she would usually go hiking at Bukit Gasing with a group, but decided to go trekking solo when she missed the group.
She said that she was attacked at the tarred road near the suspension bridge at Bukit Gasing when two men on a motorcycle approached her, and one tried to grab her phone.
"Everything happened so fast after that. Before I could turn, the bike stopped behind me and I felt someone grabbing at my right hand which was holding on to my iPhone.
"In shock I gripped my phone tighter and spun around," she said.
Saw said that she and the man struggled, and the attacker grabbed her arm more aggressively and ripped her top.
According to Saw, the attack lasted less than 10 seconds.
"I was just shocked. And I instinctively screamed and tried to hold to my phone," she told The Star.
"Next thing I know I was tumbling backwards and was rolling down the slope.
"Luckily it was a shallow slope, not quite a hill," she said.
Saw said that she hit her head, her back was scratched and her neck was twisted slightly during the fall.
When she fell, the two men fled the scene and she ran away quickly to look for other hikers to lead her out of the trail.
She later lodged a police report at Petaling Jaya police station.
However, by Thursday afternoon, Saw said that she started to feel feverish with a "pounding" headache.
"I think it was the trauma," she said, adding that her whole body also ached.
Saw said that the incident served as a reminder to never take safety for granted.
