Last weekend in Buffalo, a man fell from the upper deck of Ralph Wilson Stadium while goofing around and wound up injuring someone on the lower deck who broke his fall.
A man in Oakland wound up in the hospital on Sunday after a fan fell on him from above, but the circumstances were quite different this time. The man attempted to break the fall of a woman who jumped from the third deck of O.co Coliseum shortly after the end of the Raiders’ loss to the Titans. The man saw the woman preparing to jump, pleaded with her not to do it and then tried to catch her.
Both people wound up in the hospital and the woman was critically injured, but Sgt. J.D. Nelson of the Alameda County Sheriffs Office said the woman would already be dead if not for the actions of the unnamed 61-year old Marine Corps veteran.
“He just couldn’t imagine having people see that,” Nelson said, via the San Jose Mercury News. “He said it was a reaction. Even now, at the hospital he’s very concerned about her. He’s a real compassionate person. Raider fans get a bad reputation, yet here’s this guy that went way over and above what most people would do to try and save this woman.”
Let’s hope that updates on people falling from the stands doesn’t become a staple of our weekly coverage of the NFL even if the story does feature someone acting laudably in a moment of crisis.