'Child Dummy' Carjacking Hoax Circulating In Pierce County

PUYALLUP, WA - If you're driving down a dark road in Puyallup and see a stranded motorist with what appears to be a child, should you keep on driving to avoid being car-jacked? A social media warning about such a scenario has been circulating in Pierce County recently, but police warn that it's just a hoax.

"ATTENTION PUYALLUP," the grammatically-challenged Facebook post describing the scam begins. "On Canyon Road in Puyallup last night a couple thought they saw a child laying by the side of the road they pulled over, the driver is an RN. they started to get out of the car and then they noticed a black Jeep pull up with two guys in it. They stayed by their car doors and were on the phone to 911.

"The guys in the jeep saw her on the phone, they picked the child up which was a actually a dummy, put it in the Jeep, and took off. They are sure that they would've been car jacked if they had gotten all the way out of their car and were not on their phone."

According to the Pierce County Sheriff's Office, much of what's in the post is actually true - except the whole carjacking thing.

The sheriff's office reported receiving multiple calls about the incident, and sent deputies out to investigate. They actually found the two men, the alleged carjackers, but they turned out to be lifeguards. That child-size dummy? It was used for CPR training.

The whole thing appears to have been a misunderstanding, the sheriff's office said in a Facebook post.

"As they pulled into their driveway the dummy fell out of the back of their Jeep, so the occupants jumped out and ran to retrieve it from the roadway. When they saw that another vehicle had stopped (the 911 callers), they ran to the vehicle to explain what happened but the vehicle sped off," the sheriff's office explained.

Image via Pixabay