A former Marine and college football star helped a dying mother save a small child from an apartment fire that killed his mother.
A witness filmed the moment Phillip Blanks caught a 3-year-old boy after Rachel Long, his mother, threw him over a balcony as flames engulfed a Phoenix, Arizona, apartment building on July 3. He credits his time as a wide receiver at California’s Saddleback College during the 2016-17 season for his feat. Blanks is also a retired Marine and works as a bodyguard.
“I know how to catch,” he told ABC7. “I’ve learned how to catch a football. So I’ll give some credit to football.”
The 28-year-old Blanks was at a friend’s apartment after a workout when he heard commotion outside.
“Instinct. There wasn’t much thinking. I just reacted. I just did it,” he recalled. Blanks ran outside without shoes on. In the video, people are heard telling Long to throw the boy from the balcony seconds before Blanks, who was wearing a red shirt, appeared.
“He was twirling in the air like a propeller,” he told ABC7. “I just did my best. His head landed perfectly on my elbow. His ankle got twisted up as I was diving. The guy who was there with me — it looked like he wasn’t going to catch him. So that’s why I stepped in. I just wanted to make a better catch.”
Another child, an 8-year-old girl, was also saved by a good Samaritan, per ABC15. Long, 30, did not survive and her body was recovered after the fire was extinguished.
“She’s the real hero of the story,” Blanks said of Long. “Because she made the ultimate sacrifice to save her children.”
Juanita Williams, Long’s neighbor, told ABC15 Long was on fire while she worked to save her children and remembered her as a dedicated mother.
“She threw the second child over the balcony,” Williams told the station. “She was burning but she just didn’t make it out. She was a good mother she did everything, go to the pool every week, every weekend, doing stuff with their kids.”
Blanks hopes he will be able to remain in the children’s lives.
“I would honestly like to be involved in the kids’ lives because I know they had a traumatic experience and I know that their lives have changed forever,” Blanks told MLive.
“In this situation if I could use this platform to get these kids some help, that’d be great,” Blanks said. “I don’t need any. I don’t want any help or too much recognition for this. I just feel like I was doing my job.”
The two children and another adult were hospitalized after the blaze. About eight apartment units were damaged by the flames. Long’s husband was at work at the time.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
