Once a Marine, always a Marine. That's what Lori Navidad says about her husband Donnie, who saved the life of a suicidal woman on Sunday as she jumped from the upper deck of the Oakland Coliseum.
Donnie Navidad is speaking out for the first time after being nationally lauded as a hero.
As Home Post reported Monday, the 61-year-old Marine Corps veteran broke the 50-foot fall of a distraught woman who plunged from the stadium's upper deck shortly after the Raiders game ended.
Navidad told Sacramento television station 10News:
"I had a fix on her and then she started to descend. As she started to descend I braced myself to catch her."
Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. J.D. Nelson praised Navidad's actions to the Oakland Tribune:
"He (Navidad) saved her life quite honestly, at his own expense. This guy 100 percent saved her life. She'd be dead now."
When he's not saving lives, Navidad lives Stockton with his wife, works for the General Services Administration, and enjoys spending time with his six-month-old great grandchild. He explained to The Associated Press:
"They want to label me a hero, but how do you define a hero? I would've done it for anybody."
At this writing, the woman whom Navidad saved is still hospitalized in critical condition. Her identity has not yet been released.
