Woman steps in to help UPS driver after vicious attack

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- There have been five delivery truck robberies in the Houston area in two weeks. The latest happened Thursday night, and was perhaps the scariest.

"I seen three guys with shirts around them. First they started talking, and say something," says a woman who says she saw it happen. "Next thing you know, the man was walking and they started chasing him, and he just started running for his life."

For fear of her safety, the woman asked that we not identify her.

We spoke with the UPS driver on the phone. He told Eyewitness News he'd finished a delivery at Crestmont Village Apartments when three men jumped him.

He says he fought them off with his UPS scanner and ran away. They shot him in the hip as he ran.

"He ran across the street off of Cederburg and that's where he collapsed and said 'Help, help, call the ambulance, I'm shot.'"

After they shot the driver, police say they robbed his truck. A UPS inventory revealed about 30 packages were missing.

"Nobody should get hurt on their job like that, because this man fought for his life."

This was on the heels of a string of delivery truck robberies we first reported Monday. In the four previous robberies, the suspect left the driver shirtless, took the truck, and dumped it nearby. A driver told us then that she was concerned for her safety dropping packages off.

"They're definitely not afraid if they're robbing a man," she said. "But if they robbed a woman, they could push us in the back of the truck, we could be raped."

Austin Vaughn Greer is charged with one of those, and believed to be behind the others. He was arrested in Fort Bend County Tuesday. He was in jail when the robbery happened, so police don't believe this latest attack was connected to the others.

The driver shot Thursday is going to be fine.