Jerry and Tenisha Jensen are a couple from Centerville, Utah who took the time to teach their 12 year-old son Duncan a simple trick to save himself from someone trying to kidnap him. They’re sure glad that they taught him this now, as it just came in handy in a big way.

Duncan was recently walking home from his cousin’s house when he noticed a car parked on a corner. The driver of the car suddenly started yelling at Duncan, trying to lure him into his car with the promise of candy.

“Hey kid, do you want some candy?” the man asked.

Duncan told the man “no,” but the driver got out of his car and ran right for him. He then grabbed the child by his clothing and started dragging him back to his car.

“You never think something like this is going to happen and it will. It does,” Tenisha said.

At this moment, Duncan remembered the trick his parents had taught him, and police are saying that what he did may have just saved his life.

“My son walking home had a little key ring in his hand and he was just playing with it, he had it in between his knuckles,” Jerry said. “He said, ‘when the guy looked back at me dad, I just – I gave it to him.’ The guy dropped. My son just took off running up towards the park.”

Now, Jerry and Tenisha are going public with their story to encourage other parents to teach this to their kids as well.

“There’s 1,000 different scenarios that could have gone differently,” Jerry said. “One little thing could have gone wrong and be a different story. We don’t even want to think about.”

Find out more about this in the video below.