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‘Hero’ compared to Spiderman as he confronts ‘In-N-Out’ crazy armed with a stick

A 20-year-old college student has been dubbed the “Drive-thru Defender” after his heroics at a Golden State fast food restaurant included some friendly neighborhood acrobatics.

(Video Credit: KTLA 5)

Since hitting theaters at the end of July, fans have been raving about the blockbuster hit of the summer, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which has roped in more than $2.3 billion worldwide. This week, patrons at a Lake Elsinore, California, In-N-Out got their own wall-crawler-style dinner and a show when their Double-Double was paired with a gymnast’s window entry “like Spider-man” to thwart a seemingly disturbed, stick-wielding woman.

Friday, KTLA 5 got a hold of 20-year-old Luca Opperman after video captured him confronting a woman holding a sharp stick likened to a baseball bat in size after he himself had entered the restaurant feet first through the drive-thru window.

As he explained to KTLA’s Sandra Mitchell, with the title, “Drive-thru Defender,” appearing under his name, “I just hear, like, banging, like super loud banging coming from inside of the lobby. I then look up, and I see this lady overhead smashing what looked like a baseball bat.”

According to reports, the enraged woman, said to be 53-year-old Antonienta Sanchez by the Los Angeles Times, had cleared the kitchen of employees during a tirade allegedly prompted by a long wait for her burger around 1 a.m. on Wednesday.

After entering the kitchen via the window in a move described as “like Spider-man” or “Jackie Chan,” the former gymnast and trampoline athlete who used to play rugby and teach parkour grabbed a spatula to confront the woman as he attempted to take the stick away.

“Like, I’m holding the spatula, I’m wielding my spatula, right? And I’m like yelling at her, I’m like, ‘Get out of here! Get out of here!’” he told Mitchell before explaining the forceful move that followed, “That’s when you see me go in with the shoulder drop.”

“I checked her. I grabbed the stick. This was a stick the size of a baseball bat, and then the other end was snapped off, so it was like a sharp end too, with like, thick, snapped-off wood. You know what I mean? Sharp edges,” detailed Opperman.

After responding to the scene, Riverside County Sheriff’s deputies detained Sanchez without incident and, according to the Times, Lt. Deirdre Vickers reported there were no injuries. The suspect was booked at the Southwest Detention Center on suspicion of felony vandalism and brandishing a weapon.

In a statement, In-N-Out expressed, “We are thankful that one of our customers bravely intervened to ensure the safety of everyone nearby. We applaud his selflessness and quick thinking, and we’ve been able to share our gratitude with him.”

While there was no word on whether Opperman would score free burgers as many suggested, he told Mitchell, “If I didn’t step in, right there and then, right, I knew that somebody could have gotten hurt. Anybody who goes into a restaurant waving around a wooden baseball bat, saying call the cops and that you’re just in there looking for trouble, you’re gonna find trouble, and you found me that night.”

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