When two young thugs held a pocketknife to her throat, the feisty Bentley Park girl lashed out with karate moves she learned from a Hollywood blockbuster and sent her attackers fleeing."I got him by the arm that had the knife and twisted it and threw him on to the ground," Lana told The Cairns Post. The boy, aged about 12, was sprawled on the path, stunned by her fightback.
"He threw the knife at Emma (Lana’s sister) and ran," she said.
Another boy filmed the attack with his mobile phone, she said.
Lana said she only became scared after her attackers fled.
Police are investigating the incident, which happened as Lana, Emma and their friend Jasmine walked along a pathway at Adventure Close, Bentley Park, late Monday afternoon.
The girls said they saw the same boys trying to beat up another child earlier that afternoon.
That attack also was being recorded, they said.
Lana’s mother, Annette Lack, was relieved and proud that her daughter could defend herself so well.
"I was just unbelievably happy that she had done it, actually," Ms Lack said.
"I said to her yesterday, 'I can’t call you little one anymore, I’ll have to call you grasshopper’.
"The policeman who spoke to us said, 'Jeez, they picked the wrong kid’."
Lana, who has never taken a self-defence class, said she had learned the karate moves by watching Shanghai Knights, starring martial arts star Jackie Chan.
Ms Lack said she was alarmed at the thought of boys threatening her daughters with a knife.
"It wasn’t like they were walking around in the middle of the night," she said.
"It was broad daylight."
Emma said she believed the boys planned to post the attack on her sister on the internet.
"But they won’t now because he got beaten up," she said.
Source: The Cairns Weekend Post - December 20, 2007
CHECK OUT THE FILM THAT MADE THIS YOUNG LADY A WARRIOR: