ST. MATTHEWS, Ky. — Imagine sitting in your car, just to have the door violently flung open by a stranger wielding a gun, forcing you to get out and give up the vehicle. That was real life for Louisville woman Summer Hendricks.

Hendricks was leaving a St. Matthews gym on March 29, when a man confronted her and took her car. The frightening ordeal underscores an even larger problem across Louisville and its surrounding neighborhoods; the number of carjackings continues to climb, the heightened rate holding steady in Louisville.

“It was a very, very scary moment,” Hendricks said. She won’t soon forget the night her life was threatened and her car was taken.

It happened fast, in just a matter of seconds. Hendricks said she was sitting in car to leave the gym, when a man opened her door. She saw his face and soon after, his gun.

“It didn’t feel real, and then when I knew it was real, it was horrifying,” Hendricks explained. “I looked up at him and I said ‘come on man, please don’t do this.’ He just said ‘get out or I’ll shoot you.’"

Surveillance video shows the shadowy figure forcing her out, then driving her car away as she watched.

“When it’s taken from you, you feel so violated,” Hendricks said.

Unfortunately, she’s not the only carjacking victim. There are others with similar stories to tell, as the amount of carjackings continues to climb across the Louisville area. One month after Hendricks’ car was stolen, a 57-year-old woman was shot in the hand in what may have been an attempted carjacking.

In LMPD’s report narrative, an officer wrote: “she was approached by an unknown male with a firearm who demanded her to step out of her vehicle.”

But the officer said the theft was thwarted when she, “placed her car in drive and before she could exit the area the suspect fired a single round into the vehicle.” It hit her hand, requiring surgery.

In the following weeks, multiple young women reported suspicious, erratic drivers following them at night from the intersection of Bardstown Road and Hurstbourne Parkway. These are just some examples of the crime trend.

According to LMPD data, there were 211 carjackings in 2020. So far in 2021 as of May 20, data shows 94. That’s on pace to nearly equal last year’s rate.  

The FBI is getting involved in some of these cases where federal charges come into play. Back in August, a task force was formed to get a handle on the rate of the violent incidents. There can be federal sentences, for example, when a person uses a dangerous weapon to kill, injure, or threaten the carjacking victim.

“There have been a lot of serious injuries or even deaths in the last year or two from carjackings, that it’s become a problem that requires federal attention,” FBI Louisville Supervisory Agent Andrew Phillips explains.

Federal charges can mean tougher consequences like longer prison sentences, or even the death penalty if the person convicted killed the carjacking victim.

Phillips notes how serious the crime has become, offering a word of safety advice:

“What I tell my family is, move with a purpose. Let’s get in and out of the car. Let’s not hang in or around the car because that’s an asset that people want.”

Hendricks said she did the best she could to defend her life by giving up her car. She has no regrets.

“It’s just a miracle that I wasn’t shot. He was going to do it if I didn’t give him my car. [One] hundred percent…I just had a lot of anger in my heart, and ‘what if I did this instead,’ and ‘what if I did this instead’…but you can’t do that to yourself,” she said.

Hendricks feels blessed for another miracle, in that she actually got her car back. St. Matthews Police said an LMPD officer was patrolling an apartment complex in their jurisdiction, and ran the car’s tag to match it as stolen. However, there’s been no arrest.

Police Chief Barry Wilkerson assures that his officers are still working on that.

“We’re still hopeful that we can solve this,” Wilkerson said. “You know, it may take some tips from other people. A lot of times, it may take an instance where we make an arrest on something else, and they know this individual did this and sometimes they tell on each other.”

Hendricks’ Kia wasn’t returned unscathed, however. She says the man did 4,000 miles in the 3.5 weeks he had it. The battle scars include: a ripped out computer, broken visors, shattered mirrors, paint streaks and various scratches to the vehicle exterior.

She wants the man who did this to be arrested, mostly to be held accountable for all the hurt he’s caused her. But Hendricks says she’s able to ultimately forgive him for what he did.

“I’ve had a lot of things happen in life. This has probably been the most traumatic thing I’ve had happen,” Hendricks said.

Police are urging drivers to be aware of their surroundings as the carjackings continue, above all; check around the car before approaching it.