Public Service Announcement: Do You Know What This Hand Sign Means?
I’m going to ask you right at the top of this article to please share this far and wide…
You quite literally could save a life.
Do you know what this hand sign means?
Watch:
👇👇👇👇👇👇 pic.twitter.com/wnRvRJE4Xr
— DailyNoah.com (@DailyNoahNews) September 19, 2023
Big thanks and credit to my friend Pizza Pepe for posting that video.
It’s a great reminder and knowing this one simple sign could mean the difference between life and death.
It’s not just for kids either.
Watch this:
And I know what some of you might be thinking…
Great story, thanks but that will NEVER happen.
I’ll never use that.
No one has ever used that….
And you’d be 100% wrong.
Dead wrong.
And a 16 year old girl is alive and safe due to using that hand signal.
It’s an incredible story.
Watch this from The Today Show:
From Florida Today, here are more details about the rescue:
As the man drove the girl around the Midwest, she would repeatedly make a hand gesture toward unassuming cars cruising by.
The hand signal, which the girl learned on TikTok, is simply referred to as the “signal for help.”
The hand gesture was created by the Canadian Women’s Foundation in 2020, anticipating domestic violence victims may need to use it during quarantine.
The gesture is a one-handed sign where you show your palm as if to give a high-five, then tuck the thumb into your palm and lower the remaining four fingers over it.
After making this gesture toward countless cars, one astute citizen on I-75 in Kentucky saw the girl’s silent pleas for help right around noon.
While it was the hand gesture that got his attention, he later said he also saw her mouthing the words “help me.”
He called 9-1-1, relayed that a girl in a car may be in danger, then followed along until officers came to pursue.
The kidnapper was arrested and charged with many crimes, and the girl was returned to her family — alive.
“I really believe that this girl’s life was saved,” said Laurel County (Kentucky) Sheriff’s Office spokesman Deputy Gilbert Acciardo.
Just imagine how this could have turned out had this girl not been making the attention-getting hand gesture.
The important thing to note is this isn’t something just for youths. Adults should learn this sign as well.
Here’s exactly how to make the gesture:
And from NPR:
Authorities in Kentucky say they arrested a 61-year-old man and rescued an underage girl from his car after a motorist saw her using a hand gesture popularized on the social media platform TikTok last year.
A campaign called the “Signal for Help” started by the Canadian Women’s Foundation spread across social media in 2020 as a way for domestic abuse victims to seek help using a nonverbal cue.
The signal consists of tucking your thumb into your open palm then folding your four other fingers over your thumb.
The foundation created it as a way for victims of abuse to discreetly ask for help on a video call, as COVID-19 lockdowns forced many people to stay indoors and led to a surge in domestic violence.
Last week, a 911 caller alerted authorities in Kentucky that a female passenger in a car traveling southbound on I-75 was using a hand gesture that indicates violence at home and appeared to be in distress.
The 911 caller followed the vehicle, noting that a man was behind the wheel, and alerted authorities when it began to exit the highway.
That’s when police say they pulled over the car and learned that the juvenile female passenger had been reported missing from Asheville, N.C. two days earlier by her parents.
According to investigators, the passenger said she and the driver had traveled through North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio, where the man had relatives. When the man’s family realized his female passenger was underage, the pair left Ohio, and the female passenger began trying to get the attention of other drivers.
Laurel County Sheriff’s deputies say they also found a phone in the driver’s possession that allegedly contained material portraying a juvenile female in a sexual manner.
Please share!
You might just save a life!
