Woman in wheelchair fights purse snatcher

LONGVIEW, Wash., July 28 (UPI) -- A Washington state woman said a would-be purse snatcher ran off after she rammed him with her electric wheelchair.

Luva Rhodes, who suffers from congestive heart failure, said she was sitting in her wheelchair outside her residential care facility in Longview when a man who appeared to be 18 or 19 years old walked around a corner and tried to grab her purse, KPTV, Portland, Ore., reported Tuesday.

Rhodes said the man was unable to free the handle of the purse from where it had been wrapped around her chair and she rammed the attacker to make him give up his pursuit of her valuables.

"(I) rammed him with my wheelchair a couple of times and he took off running," Rhodes said. "He ran like a little girl.

"It's pretty sick to do it to anybody, but to a person like me? He just thought he could overpower me, but nope, I wasn't going to let him."