Former Jets receiver Braylon Edwards rescued an 80-year-old man from an assault inside a YMCA locker room on Friday.
Police are praising Edwards as a lifesaver after a 25-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of punching an elderly man during an argument in Farmington Hills, Michigan. According to the local NBC affiliate in Detroit,.
Edwards, who stopped by the YMCA for a workout, said he heard an argument starting about four rows behind him over loud music.
“I wasn’t paying attention, I was just doing my job,” Edwards told WDIV-TV. “The noise escalates, you hear pushing and shoving, and you can tell what the fighting sounds like. You start to hear some fighting, you start to hear some fists, but then you hear a thud. That’s when I got up and turned around when I heard the sound.
“And I see him and I think he’s reaching for his cell phone under the victim,” Edwards added. “He grabbed the victim by the hair on the back of his head and tried to slam him against the counter. I grabbed him and subdued him.”
Edwards, 41, hasn’t played in the NFL since 2012.
He had 238 catches for 1,570 yards and 11 touchdowns in 31 games in three seasons with the Jets late in his career.
The incident was about 30 minutes from where Edwards grew up.
The alleged perpetrator fled the scene and police sealed off several nearby schools as a precautionary measure until an arrest was made, the report said.
“I didn’t know it was this serious,” Edwards said. “So I think the victim probably had a severe concussion essentially, but it wasn’t until I talked to the Farmington detectives that they told me that. [it was a life-threatening situation] If I hadn’t intervened. But at the end of the day, that’s what you do. ”
Why was Edwards involved?
“People go to work out, have a good time, and live to be 80 years old, but they don’t expect that something might take their life,” Edwards said. “My mother, my grandmother, my father, those are the things I think about the moment I get home.”
The 80-year-old man is expected to survive, and Edwards hopes to see him once he is released from the hospital, according to reports.
