Mugger learns painful lesson after trying to rob swimming instructor
A construction worker has been hailed as a hero after foiling a robbery in the northeastern Argentine city of Bernal.
Surveillance footage showed the victim, Nicólas, standing by his car when one of the three suspects ambushed him in broad daylight on Monday.
The robber punched the swimming instructor in the face, causing him to fall in the middle of the street as his accomplices waited on two motorcycles to escape.
Nicólas can be seen kicking at the attacker, who then began to strangle him.
While he was unresponsive, the construction worker ran at the robber and knocked him to the ground as his colleague ran towards him.
The perpetrator then got up, jumped on the back of one of the motorcycles and fled the scene without stealing Nicólas’ personal belongings.
Nicólas told Argentine news channel TN that he was on his way to visit his son at the building of a local football club when the robber approached him while he was removing a backpack in which he kept money for the purchase of a new mobile phone.
“The man hit me and the masons were there, they have been working there for a long time, we talked and we know each other,” Nicólas explained.
A robber approaches Nicólas, a swimming instructor, before a quick-thinking construction worker ran him over and knocked him to the ground on Monday in Bernal, a city in northeastern Argentina
The robber began to strangle Nicólas in a failed attempt to steal his backpack
Nicólas lay unconscious on the ground for a while before a construction worker he befriended a while ago came to his aid and tackled the robber (circled)
The robber ran towards one of his two accomplices (seen on the motorcycles) and fled
“I shouted at them and one of them recognized me, so he ran away,” he added.
‘Cesar, the big man, is a boss. When he saw it was me, he jumped on top of one of the criminals.’
Nicólas praised Cesar’s courageous response.
“It is a liberated area and fortunately I can tell you that I am doing well, and no one has to regret an event that could have ended in death,” he said.
‘It was a heroic act by the mason who threw himself on top of the criminals to prevent them from hitting me. They kicked me in the head.’