11-year-old faces Florida carjacker

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (WTLV/NBC) – A brave Florida 11-year-old was held at gunpoint while her mother was shopping at a Dollar Tree.

WTLV’s Crystal Bailey spoke one-on-one with the girl as she re-lived the terrifying carjacking.

“What if the gun’s a real gun? What if it’s not a toy gun? What if I die?” Vania Quiroz-Medina said of being carjacked at gunpoint. “Immediately he came in, opened the door, got his gun out, pointed it and said, ‘Get out of the car get out of the [expletive deleted] car!'”

Vania says she stuck around to double check that her little siblings weren’t in the car with her.

She’s still got scars to show for her bravery.

“I kept thinking my little brothers and sisters were still there so I put my fingers between the door, the back door and the front door and it kept slamming into my fingers. That’s how I got the scars,” she explained.

Vania ran into the store to get her mother, who had left her in the car for just a moment while she went inside to shop.

“Immediately, the manager called 911 and everyone was around me saying, “What happened?’” Vania said.

The store clerks at the Dollar Tree say their cameras didn’t catch the crime, but Vania gave police a description of the man.

She said her family was able to get their car back after a detective spotted it at a nearby motel.

“It wasn’t harmed in any way, it wasn’t busted. It just smelled like cigar” Vania said.

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