Former New York Jets wide receiver Braylon Edwards saved the life of an 80-year-old man who was being attacked in a locker room at a YMCA in Farmington Hills outside of Detroit, Mich.
“If it wasn’t for that intervention, we could very easily be talking about someone’s death,” Jeff King, the police chief in Farmington Hills told The Associated Press.
Authorities have filed an attempted murder charge against an unnamed 20-year-old man for the incident at the recreation center on Friday, March 1.
Edwards, who is now 41 and has retired from football, said he heard an altercation about loud music.
“The noise escalates, and then you can hear some pushing and shoving, so you know what fighting sounds like,” Edwards told WDIV-TV. “But once I hear a thud, that’s when I got up and turned around.”
Edwards stopped the altercation. The elderly man was left with a severe head injury and the 20-year-old suspect fled on foot before being captured by police.
“He absolutely saved that man’s life,” King told The Associated Press. “I’ve been a police officer going on 29 years. When these assaults are ongoing, really bad things can happen.”
The chief said the victim was in critical but stable condition at a hospital Monday.
