A Seattle man was the victim of a carjacking; the attack ultimately saved his life

Tom Ogren was on his way to return two books to the Northgate branch of the Seattle Public Library when his car was hijacked by two guardian angels.

After Ogren chased the gray Hyundai Tucson that rear-ended his silver Lexus SUV shortly before 11 a.m. on December 16, he was pulled from his car and beaten by two men in the Hyundai.

The men then stole Ogren’s wallet, cell phone and keychain, jumped into his Lexus and sped away, according to Ogren and a Seattle Police Department report. The 79-year-old was left bleeding and bruised in the emergency room at the University of Washington Medical Center.

But the incident, Ogren said, saved his life.

Ogren recovered on Friday, two days after undergoing a successful angioplasty, a procedure that places stents in four blocked arteries in his heart.

After the attack and during a subsequent hospital visit, doctors discovered that Ogren had an irregular heart rhythm. He was referred to a cardiologist, who told him in May that he was on the verge of a fatal heart attack.

“The cardiologist said, ‘Oh man, I would give you two to three months to live if you hadn’t come here,'” Ogren said. “I called him sarcastically and said, ‘I’m perfectly healthy,’ and he said, ‘No, you’re not.'”

Ogren’s trip to the cardiologist began when the Hyundai crashed into the back of his Lexus at a red light at the Interstate 5 exit near First Avenue Northeast. Ogren watched in disbelief as the Hyundai drove around him, sped through the red light, turned left and disappeared from view.

Ogren followed the Hyundai for about a mile and noticed the car driving through a nearby residential neighborhood with its radiator steaming. It eventually stopped near North 107th Street and Whitman Avenue North. The driver, a Seattle resident for 55 years, parked behind the Hyundai and rolled down the driver’s side window when two men got out of the car and walked toward him.

“Do you have your insurance card?” Ogren remembers asking before leaning over to his glove compartment to pull out his own.

At that moment, Ogren heard his car door open and felt two hands grabbing his sweater.

“He grabbed me, threw me to the ground and started punching me, kicking me, hitting me and slamming my head into the pavement,” Ogren said. “I still have a big bump on the back of my head from that.”

After the attackers fled, neighbors who heard Ogren screaming for help called 911 and gave him a chair to sit on while they waited for officers to arrive. As warm blood ran down his face, Ogren said, he realized his mistake.

“I completely missed the signals – the body language, the way they approached me, the way the whole thing was going – I should have known, but I was just naive,” Ogren said. “I acted in good faith that we would take out the insurance and drive away.”

Law enforcement agencies in the area have warned of what Renton police called “staged vehicle collisions,” in which a driver rear-ends another vehicle and then commits a carjacking.

Firefighters arrived and treated Ogren, who took an Uber to the hospital and underwent a “series of tests.” He said he expected to hear he might have a broken rib when a doctor entered the room to discuss his results.

Then his mistake turned into a miracle.

“I had an (electrocardiogram) and they found an ‘atrial fibrillation’ (irregular) heart rhythm,” Ogren said. “I’m 79 and I’ve never had any message or indication that I have a heart problem.”

Ogren went home with bandaged abrasions and a recommendation to speak to his primary care doctor about possible heart disease. His doctor referred him to a cardiologist, who discovered Ogren’s clogged arteries after performing two angiograms in May.

The cardiologist told Ogren that he would need to undergo either open-heart surgery or angioplasty, which Ogren underwent on Wednesday.

“The procedure went very well,” Ogren said Friday. “I’m on the road to recovery and it looks like everything is turning out well.”

Seattle police have not yet identified the suspects who used Ogren’s credit cards to spend more than $600 at 7-Eleven, Macy’s and Foot Locker, the police report said.

The day after the attack, Ogren said, his grandson tracked the location of his stolen phone to an apartment complex near Renton, where King County sheriff’s officers found his Lexus. The car was towed back to Seattle and had sustained about $11,000 in damage, Ogren said. He has since traded the car for a Honda CRV, he said.

But Ogren said when he thinks back to the two men who attacked him and stole his car that day in December, only one word comes to mind: “grateful.”

“I could have been shot, I could have hit my head on something and died – all of those things were possible, but none of those things happened,” he said. “And I’ll live another day.”