ST. LOUIS — It was supposed to be a routine ride from the grocery store to her home in south St. Louis.
"It was a warm, beautiful day," recalled the woman, who asked 5 On Your Side to not show her face, her home or disclose her name.
"I was just coming down Loughborough Avenue like I always do," she recalled.
However, just before 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon, the great-grandmother's trip took an unexpected and dangerous turn.
"I saw these two kids. They're both wearing black jackets and black pants. One of the guys got a hoodie up and then he's got a gray mask on him. The other kid wasn't wearing a mask, and I thought these kids are not up to anything good," said the woman.
The 82-year-old was right.
Her neighbor's security camera caught the teens on video when they walked down an alley and approached her car.
"They said excuse me, but will you give us a ride and I looked at them and I said what, and they said our mother had a heart attack and we want to get to the hospital," she remembered.
But the alert grandma knew they wanted something else.
The older boy suddenly made a move.
"He stuck a gun in the window and he said, 'Get out! Give me your car' and with that I stepped on the gas and I got away," said the woman.
The retired business owner sped off, kept honking her horn, trying to alert her neighbors and called police.
She said it happened so fast, she had no time to be afraid.
"My late husband was a St. Louis police officer for 30 years before he retired. Maybe he taught me something I didn't realize, but really I've always been cautious about my surroundings and street savvy. Common sense just told me to get the hell out of there when you see a gun and the gun didn't look like a real gun," she said.
Turns out, it was a BB gun.
The grandmother wasn't hurt.
"I did shake me up a bit. Well, I thank God that day. I just couldn't believe it. The young boy resembled one of my own grandkids with all that curly hair," the woman stated.
Police say the 12- and 16-year-old runaways from Indiana ran off after the attempted carjacking.
Officers later caught them near the intersection of Menard and Russell in Soulard.
The spunky survivor prayed for them during Easter Service on Sunday,
"I did pray for them. I'm hoping that this saves them from a life of hell and that this knocks some sense into their kids and they straighten their lives out. I mean and where are their parents? How did they get here from Indiana and how did they just wound up in this neighborhood?" said the concerned great-grandmother.
A spokesman for St. Louis Circuit Courts says the 12-year-old boy was released to his parents.
The 16-year-old was still in juvenile custody as of Monday afternoon.