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When Denise Cattin (44) was waiting for an Uber taxi, a pumpkin suddenly flew past her head.
Carla DeVizziEditor News
Whether as a soup, as a Halloween decoration or as a side dish – pumpkins can be used in many ways. However, the fact that they are also used as projectiles is rather unusual. This is exactly the case in the Baden AG region.
After the news portal “Argovia Today” had already reported on a cyclist (27) who was thrown with a pumpkin from a moving car in Wettingen, the cases are increasing. In the Facebook group “You are from Nussbaumen if”, more and more people are reporting. One of them is Denise Cattin (44) from Untersiggenthal AG. She too was the victim of a pumpkin attack: “It was a huge shock,” she says to Blick.
“Pumpkin flew at me at lightning speed”
It happened on the first weekend in November in Nussbaumen AG. Cattin was waiting for her Uber after work when she noticed a silver bus snaking in and out. “Suddenly the door of the car opened and a pumpkin flew past my head at breakneck speed.” The restaurateur didn’t know what was happening to her and thought: what kind of idiots are these?
The pumpkin, which the Aargau native describes as bigger than a football, she just missed. Immediately afterwards, the 44-year-old sought protection behind a garbage can. Rightly so – because it didn’t stop with the one attempt: “The car then came zigzagging again from the other side and attacked me again – fortunately unsuccessfully.” The car was also traveling too fast. “Instead of the permitted 30 km/h, the car had definitely 80 or even 100 km/h on the speedometer.”
Scooter completely destroyed after pumpkin attack
Unlike other victims, Cattin escaped with a fright. Shortly after attacking them, the Pumpkin Troublemakers targeted another group. It was a woman and two men who were each on a motorcycle scooter.
One of them is Samuel Ruesch (46) from Kirchdorf AG. He and his two friends were on their way home from Wettingen when the attack happened. “Suddenly the car drove towards us at full throttle and pumpkins flew,” says Ruesch, who reported the incident to an unknown person, to Blick. While his colleague’s motorbike was severely damaged, he and his scooter got off lightly. Nevertheless, according to Ruesch, the whole thing could have ended fatally: “It was an assassination attempt!” He and his friends could not tell what kind of car it was.
His colleague’s motorbike has been completely destroyed since the pumpkin attack. “When you see what that pumpkin has done to Blech, I don’t want to know what would have happened if it had hit us.”
“I’m totally scared”
Patrick Mayer (29) from Kirchdorf AG, who was thrown by a pumpkin the same night, feels the same way. “Fortunately, it hit my leg and not my head,” he says to Blick.
Mayer was just on his way home from the exit when something suddenly hit him on the back of his knee. “I’m totally terrified.” He then discovered a pumpkin a few meters in front of him – and like the restoration specialist Cattin, a silver bus that accelerated sharply.
Pumpkins went missing again in the region
As the Aargau cantonal police reported when asked by Blick, they are already aware of the cases. “On the one hand, we have a report of a person who was thrown at by a pumpkin from a moving car, and on the other hand, reports of cars that were damaged with pumpkins overnight,” says Dominic Zimmerli, spokesman for the Aargau canton police, to Blick.
It was possible to prove that the damage was caused by ornamental gourds. It is unclear whether the perpetrators are one or more people. However, pumpkin victim Cattin fears that the attacker is still up to mischief. “I recently read that pumpkins were stolen again from a farmer in the region.”
Perhaps light will soon come into the darkness: according to Tele M1, a farmer from Wettingen has posted footage from a surveillance camera on Facebook. They show several men apparently stealing crates of pumpkins from his farm in the middle of the night. A discussion is said to have quickly broken out as to whether these are pumpkins that are intended to be used to attack people.