Phillip Blanks, former Kalamazoo Central WR, caught a touchdown pass on the final play of a game to defeat arch-rival Loy Norrix in 2009. That was the second most important catch of his life.
The former college receiver and retired marine was the focus of shocking video where he made a life-saving catch of a 3-year-old boy, who was thrown out of a burning building in Phoenix, Arizona.
LIFESAVING CATCH: Eyewitness video shows Phillip Blanks – a former college wide receiver – sprint to the scene of a third-floor apartment fire in Phoenix before catching a small child thrown from a balcony; the mother of the child did not survive. https://t.co/CyIuiva87p pic.twitter.com/egzOxE5bFr
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) July 7, 2020
“People were screaming ‘there are kids up there’ and to throw the kids down,” Blanks said via WWMT. “I saw another guy was standing there ready to catch the boy, but he didn’t look like he was going to do it, so I stepped in front of him. The way I caught him damaged his foot, but the most important thing is his head was safe.”
The child and his sister were critically injured in the fire. Unfortunately, the mother of the two children did not survive.
