Ingenious way family tracked down their car after it was stolen while they were saying their final goodbyes to their dying grandmother in hospital
Kosta Theos and his family had been farewelling their dying grandmother at Sunshine Hospital, in Melbourne 's west, on Friday.
When the family returned to the car park their 2016 Holden Commodore was nowhere to be seen.
The model does not have built-in tracking software, but Kosta remembered he left his AirPods in the Commodore's centre console.
'All of a sudden a light bulb clicked,' he told 7News.
The AirPods provide owners with real time location updates, so Kosta and his family jumped in another one of their vehicles and gave chase.
They quickly caught up to their Commodore on the road and saw it being driven erratically and weaving through traffic.
'I'm thinking it's (going to) clip a tree, or clip a car and then it would have been mayhem,' Kosta's father John Theos said.
'It was getting thrashed he was going over the footpaths, over roundabouts.'
The family chased their car through the northern and eastern suburbs of Melbourne for an estimated total of two to three hours.
At one point, the family made a desperate plea for help from police, who were reportedly unable to help.
A second car in the chase, a black Subaru carrying stolen license plates, was blocking John and Kosta from getting close.
But after the hours of high-risk driving, the Commodore arrived at a court and was ditched by the thieves.
'We risked our lives, we had to chase, my children were in the car, we were panicking,' John said.
'Yes, you might say: 'Why did you go?' But we've got a car that means a lot to us.'
John left a frank message for the thieves.
'He wants a V8, he wants an expensive car, get a job and get it yourself,' he said.
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