A mother of two is being hailed for her quick thinking — and criticized for a heart-wrenching decision — after using a Ring doorbell camera to contact her husband during a harrowing home invasion.
On a quiet summer night in Allen, Texas, Leah Amberly had just finished putting her two young children to bed and was taking a bath when the unthinkable happened. Two masked intruders dressed head-to-toe in black broke into her home.
Wrapped only in a towel, Amberly ran out of the bathroom and confronted the men. “Take whatever you want, just don’t touch my babies,” she reportedly said before bolting outside to the front door, where she turned to the only device that could reach help fast — the Ring doorbell camera.
She used it to call her husband Jacob, who was at work 30 minutes away. Seeing her panicked face appear on the app, he immediately knew something was horribly wrong.
“She was barefoot, wrapped in a towel, clutching the dog. I could see in her eyes that she was terrified,” Jacob told local reporters. “It was the worst call of my life. I felt completely helpless.”
In the chaos, Amberly made the split-second decision to leave the children in their beds, fearing they might be shot if she tried to carry them while fleeing. “I knew I couldn’t outrun them holding both kids. If they shot at me and I was carrying them… I couldn’t risk that,” she later explained on TikTok, where her video titled “The worst night of my life” went viral.
Though the children were unharmed and the intruders fled before police arrived, the internet response was mixed. Some applauded her bravery; others questioned her choice to leave the kids behind.
Allen Police have yet to make any arrests as of the latest reports, and the investigation is ongoing.
Amberly says she doesn’t regret her decision, only that her family had to experience such trauma. “I got us out alive. That’s all I ever prayed for.”
