A woman has opened up on the terrifying moment she was followed by an ‘intoxicated man’ while walking home at night before she confronted him.
Small business owner Brooke Saxby said she was ‘just trying to get her daily steps in’ when she came across the inebriated man on the Sunshine Coast last month.
She shared footage to TikTok showing the man following her across the road before she was forced to turn around and tell him off.
‘Just leave me alone, keep going, keep going,’ she said.
The man was seen in the footage wearing thongs and mumbled as he walked past the woman, deliberately stepping onto the road.
Ms Saxby had to repeatedly tell the man to keep walking before he finally left her alone.
‘Stay safe and stand your ground out there girlies! Surely no one wants to be a pest for real but this guy tried three times,’ she wrote in the caption.
‘This was the third interaction and I’d just crossed the road and asked him to please leave me alone.’
Many said they had similar experiences, ‘I always cross the road at night on my walk home from work if there are blokes on the same side,’ one said
Ms Saxby said it had only just grown dark when she decided to go out for some exercise.
‘I went for a walk just around. I’ve got my earphones in and as I looked to cross the road there’s this person following me,’ she said.
Ms Saxby said she went into a set of units and waited for ‘about five minutes’ until the man appeared to leave.
She looked out and could not see him, so decided to walk in the opposite direction.
‘All of a sudden I hear someone running up to me, I turn around and it’s this guy,’ Ms Saxby said.
‘I go, “hello, are you alright?” and he goes, “yeah, yeah, I’m just running”, and I go, “Okay well, I’m just walking, have fun”.’
The man then informed her he was also going to begin walking.
Ms Saxby said she became frightened and the man continued to walk with her when they came up to an intersection.
A Queensland woman said a man ran up behind her and crossed the road to get closer to her
‘I go, “I’m going to go this way, maybe you go a different way”,’ she said.
‘There were these two kids playing on a bike and their dad was a little bit further down.
‘I crossed the road and he stopped to talk to the kids and then the parent came over obviously.
‘During that time I was like, cool, I’m getting away from him.’
‘(But) then he runs up to me again, and I was like, “mate, did I not make myself clear?”‘
Ms Saxby said that is when she decided to cross the street and film the terrifying incident.
Many women revealed they had experienced similar unnerving situations.
‘I always cross the road at night on my walk home from work if there are blokes on the same side,’ one wrote.
‘One time, a car slowed and did a U-turn and scared me, so I ran. (I had) never run so fast in my life.’
‘So many people get attacked because of wearing earphones. I tell my kids, don’t walk with them in, it makes you a target,’ another said.
‘Even with them turned down, they can muffle your senses.’
Others praised Ms Saxby for standing up to the man.
‘He probably didn’t expect you to stand up to him. Good for you,’ one wrote.
