A 30-year-old woman in Phoenix died in a fire last Friday. But her baby survived because of a guy named Phillip Blanks. He's a former Marine who was a wide receiver in college. And when she dropped her son from her third-floor balcony, he ran in and caught him.
Phillip Blanks played wide receiver at a Southern California college but his greatest catch was to save the life of a child thrown from the balcony of an apartment fire in Phoenix, AZ.
"Instinct. There wasn't much thinking. I just reacted. I just did it," he told Eyewitness News in recalling the moment.
While the child was saved, his mother died in the fire. The 30-year-old woman's last action was to fling her son to safety as she herself was already covered in flames.
"She's the real hero of the story," Blanks said. "Because she made the ultimate sacrifice to save her children."
ABC 7
(photo Getty Images)