Woman’s miracle escape after using simple TikTok signal when ‘ex-boyfriend threatened to kill her with a screwdriver’

A WOMAN escaped from an ex-boyfriend who threatened to kill her with a screwdriver – thanks to a simple TikTok signal.

The woman was visiting with her brother in Tennessee on April 10 when her ex-boyfriend, Johnathon Smith, arrived.

Johnathon Smith has been charged in the incidentFox

Smith is from Hickman County, TennesseeFox

The hand gesture used by the woman at a gas stationFox

She went with Smith in his vehicle. But then, the two got into a “physical altercation,” Hickman County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant Mike Doddo told The Tennessean.

“The girlfriend then asked to be let out. He said, ‘No,’” according to Doddo.

Smith, 31, then “threatened to kill her by grabbing a screwdriver and telling her, if he couldn’t have her, nobody could have her.”

That’s when Smith allegedly began driving recklessly before pulling into a Twice Daily gas station.

There, the woman gestured to a gas station employee. She folded her thumb into the palm of her hand and closed her other four fingers over it, as she had learned on TikTok.

The employee repeated the gesture back to her before staff called 911.

Smith went to check out and the cashier stalled while the cops were en route to the scene.

But Smith began to catch onto what was happening, according to Doddo, and returns to his vehicle with the woman.

As the two are pulling away from the gas station, a corporal from the Hickman County Sheriff’s Office begins following them.

A pursuit then began, Doddo said, with vehicle speeds reaching 90 miles per hour. After 10-15 minutes, Smith crashed his vehicle into a creek.

He was eventually captured on foot. The woman was uninjured, The Tennessean reports.

Smith is charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated domestic assault. More charges could be on the horizon as well.

Eric Streeval was in the Twice Daily when the woman entered, FOX56 reports. She allegedly mouthed “help” to him.

Streeval, belonging to a motorcycle group that assists women in domestic violence situations, credits the woman for seeking help.

“If you see something, say something,” Streeval told FOX56.

“Domestic violence is a bad thing here in Tennessee. The victims, a lot of times they’re too afraid to speak out.

“And I credit the young lady in this situation with having the world’s most courage of actually speaking out because who knows what would have happened.”

This is not the first time the TikTok gesture has helped a woman escape a domestic violence situation.

A missing teenage girl abducted by a man flashed the signal at a passing driver last year.

Some internet sleuths also believe the hand signal was used by Gabby Petito during her encounter with cops in Moab, Utah.