Retired NFL Star Braylon Edwards Helps Save 80-Year-Old Man's Life in YMCA Locker Room Fight

The Michigan Wolverines all-time leading receiver had just finished working out on Friday morning when he intervened

• Former NFL star Braylon Edwards helped save the life of an 80-year-old man who was assaulted at his local YMCA in Michigan on Friday

• The Wolverines all-time leading receiver had just finished working out when he heard a scuffle in the locker room

• Edwards told police he fought off the suspect before the 25-year-old man fled the scene

Former NFL star Braylon Edwards says he intervened in a fight at his local YMCA in Michigan, helping to save the life of an 80-year-old man.

The former University of Michigan standout, 41, said had just finished working out at the facility in Farmington Hills on Friday morning when he heard a thud several rows away in the locker room, according to NBC affiliate WDIV-TV.

“The noise escalates, and then you can hear some pushing and shoving, so you know what fighting sounds like, but once I hear a thud, that’s when I got up and turned around,” Edwards told the station.

The retired wide receiver found a 25-year-old man assaulting an 80-year-old man, he recalled to WDIV.

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"He grabs the back of the victim's head by the hair and he was about to slam it down on the counter," the Wolverines' all-time leading receiver said. "I grabbed him, subdued him."

Officers with the Farmington Hills Police Department soon arrived on scene to find the older male, a resident of West Bloomfield Township, unconscious with severe facial injuries in the men’s locker room, according to a news release from the police department obtained by PEOPLE.

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Edwards told police that he was attacked by the assailant but was able to fight him off before the 25-year-old fled on foot.

After local schools were placed on a precautionary lockdown, the suspect was found and taken into custody without incident, police said.

Edwards said he didn’t realize the severity of the situation until later when he spoke with police.

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The victim was taken to a local hospital, where he remains in serious but stable condition, the Farmington Hills Police Department said.

For Edwards — who retired from the NFL in 2012 after playing for the Cleveland Browns, New York Jets, Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers — stepping in was the right thing to do.

"At the end of the day, I was just, that's what you do," he told WDIV. "People go to work out, they have a good time, they live 80 years, and this isn't how they expect for something maybe [to] take their life. My mom, my grandmother, my father, in that moment, when you come back home, these are the people you think about."

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