Armed with her tools, Bethany Coker is a respected no-nonsense mechanic in her Nanaimo repair shop.
“Beth’s a tough lady,” said Dave Keys, a co-worker at Supertech Diesel in Nanaimo.
But even that tough reputation, couldn’t prepare her for finding a naked man in her trunk, who had been there for three days.
“And I hear ‘Hey can you let me out,’ and at first I thought someone was messing with me. So I pulled out my phone and I started filming,” Bethany Coker told CHEK News.
What followed has gone viral on TikTok, seen over 16.8 million times, and given her a new title.
“The naked trunk lady,” said Coker laughing.
The incident happened on the afternoon of Feb. 1, just as Coker was leaving her job for the day. At first, she thought it must be a prank. When she realized it wasn’t, she ran.
“I slammed the door closed and I like sprint back to work and I’m like freaking out,” said Coker.
“There’s someone in my car, there’s someone in my car,” she can be heard yelling out on the video that was still recording on her phone.
Co-workers rushed out to help and when police arrived, they found the naked man had been missing for three days. He had climbed into Coker’s car while experiencing a mental health crisis. In surveillance video from a neighbour’s home, he is recorded getting in, three days earlier.
According to 26-year-old Coker, she had found the seats muddy the next day, and figured someone had climbed in when she mistakenly left it unlocked but never imagined they had never got out.
“He didn’t make a single noise, he didn’t say anything and like my car has loud exhaust and he was probably rolling around back there, like as I was driving around,” she said.
“So he’d just been sitting in her car, in the parking lot, while she was at work, like in her driveway at home,” said Keys.
The man was taken to hospital for care, to the relief of his grateful family.
Coker says she was glad it was her who found him, adding that several comments online have made her realize how dangerous it could have turned.
“Totally, a lot of people are like ‘I would have pulled out my gun’ and I’m like ‘oh my goodness no,'” she said.
Coker said sharing the video, has also brought a heartwarming response from many women, who want to learn to be mechanics like her.
Bethany Coker, 26, says she is glad it was her who discovered a naked man in the trunk of her car, and not someone else. (CHEK News)
@bethanycoker This guy has been in my trunk since SATURDAY fully naked. It’s currently Tuesday. Guess I found out where the mud came from… #whatthefuck #foryou #fyp #nakedman #subaru #icannot #wtf ♬ original sound – bethanycoker
Skye Ryan
