Rob Strickland doesn’t think he is a hero, but Stone Mountain elementary schoolteacher Heather Kloer disagrees.

Kloer is happy to dub the Stone Mountain man a hero after he rescued her from a carjacking and kidnapping on Jan. 9 while others stood by and watched.

Kloer is convinced that Strickland saved her life.

“He is an incredible man and I will pray for him every night,” she said.

The incident occurred about 5:30 p.m. as Kloer was opening the door to her car in the parking lot at Office Depot on Memorial Drive in Stone Mountain.

Out of nowhere, a young man approached her and asked if she had a phone.

When she said no, he told her he had a knife and that he was going to kill her.

Before she could react, he had pushed her back in her car and was trying to get in on the driver’s side, where she was.

Kloer said she tried to escape through the front passenger door, screaming at the top of her lungs.

When she screamed, the man began punching her in the face.

Strickland was pulling into the Office Depot parking lot when he heard Kloer’s screams.

“This man was attacking her in broad daylight and people were just standing around looking,” Strickland said.

The owner of Strickland Security & Safety Solutions in Atlanta grabbed his firearm and rushed to Kloer’s car shouting at the assailant to stop.

When the attacker started backing away from Kloer’s car, he tripped on a curb and stumbled.

“That’s when I hit him in the chest and held him to the ground until the police came,” Strickland said.

The suspect, 20-year-old Alex Taylor, was arrested and charged with armed robbery and aggravated assault.

He is still in the DeKalb County Jail on a $50,000 bond.

Kloer said she was saddened to hear that there were people in the parking lot who did not come to her aid, but she is very thankful for Strickland.

Strickland said it’s hard to accept the fact that he is a hero.

“I just did the right thing at the right time,” he said.

After witnessing the attack, Strickland said he will now educate the public, especially women, on how to stay alive if ever assaulted.

He recommends that women read “Common Sense Self-Defense: A Woman’s Self-Defense Survival Guide,” written by Mark James, owner of a security firm in Atlanta.

Strickland is also an author. His book, “Know the Basics to Protect Your Business,” helps educate business owners.

Both books are available at Amazon.com.

Book offers key self-defense principles

“Common Sense Self-Defense: A Woman’s Self-Defense Survival Guide” offers three key principles women can employ to escape an attacker:

- Disrupt the vision.

- Disrupt the breathing.

- Disrupt the balance.

Author Mark James says that you must be prepared to cause injury to your attacker. In the book, he teaches that injury helps negate mass.

“A woman who inflicts injury upon an attacker may give herself time to escape,” he says.