Three teenagers in Seattle, Washington attempted to steal a car in broad daylight on Sunday afternoon, but they were stymied by something they didn’t anticipate: a manual transmission.

As reported by KCPQ Fox 13, Nancy Fredrickson was pulling garage sale items she just bought out of her trunk, when three teenage boys approached her. The 70-year-old woman told KOMO 4 News, "He goes, 'I want your keys' and I thought it was a joke!"

Fredrickson quickly realized that it was serious when she saw a gun pointed at her face. She dropped her keys on the ground when one of the young men repeated himself. Nancy is a martial arts black belt and studied the discipline for 25 years. She stood frozen. "You learn that if someone is trying, the best thing you can do is to be still,” she told KOMO. “And it's not easy for me to be still at times, but in that situation yes.”

The technique worked and when the carjackers jumped in the car, ready for their escape, they could not drive the vehicle. Fredrickson said, "I got a 5-speed in there, and they couldn't figure out how to get it going." The three suspects took off on foot through a nearby parking lot, leaving Nancy’s keys in the ignition. Surveillance cameras caught images of the would-be thieves, but police are still searching for them.

Nancy can laugh about the carjacking now, because she and her car escaped unharmed. She told KIRO 7, “It was quite an interesting day.”

Videos and more info: KCPQ, KOMO, KIRO