Former NFL receiver Braylon Edwards saves elderly man from attempted murder at YMCA

Photo by Benjamin Solomon/Getty Images

This is what a hero looks like.

Braylon Edwards had plenty of heroic moments on the field during his career, and now he just added the greatest of them all off of it. Police in suburban Detroit are praising Edwards’ intervention in an altercation at a YMCA that could have resulted in the death of an elderly man.

The incident occurred in the locker room of the Farmington Hills YMCA on Friday, March 1. Edwards was working out at the facility when he heard an altercation between an elderly man and some younger men over loud music they were playing in the locker room. Edwards told Click On Detroit that he didn’t really pay much attention to the argument, until he heard it escalate into shoving. When he heard a “thud” he knew he had to step in.

When he turned the corner he witnessed the attacker grabbing the elderly man by the hair, attempting to slam his head onto the counter.

“And then I see the guy for what I was thinking was reaching for a phone underneath the victim grabs the back of the victim’s head by the hair, and he was about to slam it down on the counter.”

Edwards, now 41, played eight seasons in the NFL and he said that his football experience made him aware of what a concussion looked like, noting that the elderly man was clearly already injured by the time he intervened.

Farmington Hills police chief Jeff King praised Edwards’ efforts to the Associated Press, crediting him with stopping the incident becoming much, much worse.

“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.”

A 20-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder stemming from the incident. As for Edwards, he simply said that when you see an attack like that you simply have to step in. “That’s what you do,” Edwards said.

Absolutely phenomenal work.