MIRACLE CATCH!
Ex-football hero snags tot tossed from fire by dying mother
AS FLAMES roared around her, a doomed and desperate mother in Phoenix tossed her three-year-old son off the balcony of a burning building — and into the arms of a former football player, who made the catch of his life!
Phillip Blanks, 28, ran to the scene of the fire barefoot when he heard frantic cries for help.
Dramatic cellphone footage shows the moment Rachel Long, 30, made the heartwrenching decision to throw her little boy, Jameson, from the third floor — trusting he’d be saved by strangers.
Phillip, a onetime U.S. Marine who’d also been a college wide receiver, tells ABC News the boy was “twirling in the air like a propeller” as he fell.
But he adds, “I know how to catch. I’ve learned how to catch a football.”
With outstretched arms, Phillip cushioned Jameson’s fall and carried him to safety! The hero, who now works in the security industry, explains,
“There wasn’t much thinking. I just reacted. I just did it.”
Jameson and his eightyear-old sister, Roxxi — who was rescued by another passerby who kicked down the apartment’s front door — were taken to the hospital with burns.
Their father, Corey, was at work at the time of the incident.
Tragically, Rachel — who rushed back into the inferno to try to save her daughter — perished in the blaze. Her body was recovered after the fire was extinguished.
But Phillip says, “She’s the real hero of the story because she made the ultimate sacrifice to save her children.”